Cerebellar Purkinje cell activity modulates aggressive behavior
- Harvard Medical School, United States
- Oregon Health and Science University, United States
Abstract
Although the cerebellum is traditionally associated with balance and motor function, it also plays wider roles in affective and cognitive behaviors. Evidence suggests that the cerebellar vermis may regulate aggressive behavior, though the cerebellar circuits and patterns of activity that influence aggression remain unclear. We used optogenetic methods to bidirectionally modulate the activity of spatially-delineated cerebellar Purkinje cells to evaluate the impact on aggression in mice. Increasing Purkinje cell activity in the vermis significantly reduced the frequency of attacks in a resident-intruder assay. Reduced aggression was not a consequence of impaired motor function, because optogenetic stimulation did not alter motor performance. In complementary experiments, optogenetic inhibition of Purkinje cells in the vermis increased the frequency of attacks. These results suggest Purkinje cell activity in the cerebellar vermis regulates aggression, and further support the importance of the cerebellum in driving affective behaviors that could contribute to neurological disorders.
Data availability
Source data files have been provided for Figures 1,2 and 3.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
NIH Office of the Director (R35NS097284)
- Wade G Regehr
The Khodadah Research Fund
- Wade G Regehr
NIH Office of the Director (F32NS101889)
- Christopher H Chen
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All experiments were conducted in accordance with federal guidelines and protocols (#1493) approved by the Harvard Medical Area Standing Committee on Animals.
Copyright
© 2020, Jackman et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Cerebellar Purkinje cell activity modulates aggressive behavior
eLife 9:e53229.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.53229
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