Browsing by Author "Fu, Min"

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    Capturing and Manipulating Activated Neuronal Ensembles with CANE Delineates a Hypothalamic Social-Fear Circuit
    (Neuron, 2016-11-23) Sakurai, Katsuyasu; Zhao, Shengli; Takatoh, Jun; Rodriguez, Erica; Lu, Jinghao; Leavitt, Andrew D; Fu, Min; Han, Bao-Xia; Wang, Fan
    © 2016 Elsevier Inc.We developed a technology (capturing activated neuronal ensembles [CANE]) to label, manipulate, and transsynaptically trace neural circuits that are transiently activated in behavioral contexts with high efficiency and temporal precision. CANE consists of a knockin mouse and engineered viruses designed to specifically infect activated neurons. Using CANE, we selectively labeled neurons that were activated by either fearful or aggressive social encounters in a hypothalamic subnucleus previously known as a locus for aggression, and discovered that social-fear and aggression neurons are intermixed but largely distinct. Optogenetic stimulation of CANE-captured social-fear neurons (SFNs) is sufficient to evoke fear-like behaviors in normal social contexts, whereas silencing SFNs resulted in reduced social avoidance. CANE-based mapping of axonal projections and presynaptic inputs to SFNs further revealed a highly distributed and recurrent neural network. CANE is a broadly applicable technology for dissecting causality and connectivity of spatially intermingled but functionally distinct ensembles.