Abstract
It is adaptive to restrict eating under uncertainty, such as during habituation to novel foods and unfamiliar environments. However, sustained restrictive eating can become maladaptive. Currently, the neural substrates of restrictive eating are poorly understood. Using a model of feeding avoidance under novelty, our recent study identified forebrain activation patterns and found evidence that the central nucleus of the amygdala (CEA) is a core integrating node. The current study analyzed the activity of CEA inputs in male and female rats to determine if specific pathways are recruited during feeding under novelty. Recruitment of direct inputs from the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT), the infralimbic cortex (ILA), the agranular insular cortex (AI), the hippocampal ventral field CA1, and the bed nucleus of the stria terminals (BST) was assessed with combined retrograde tract tracing and Fos induction analysis. The study found that during consumption of a novel food in a novel environment, larger number of neurons within the PVTp and the CA1 that send monosynaptic inputs to the CEA were recruited compared to controls that consumed familiar food in a familiar environment. The ILA, AI, and BST inputs to the CEA were similarly recruited across conditions. There were no sex differences in activation of any of the pathways analyzed. These results suggest that the PVTp-CEA and CA1-CEA pathways underlie feeding inhibition during novelty and could be potential sites of malfunction in excessive food avoidance.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Amanda Madden, Margaret Sjostrom, Grace Kern, Olivia Davies, Mark Indriolo, & Zhe Liu for technical assistance and support. A portion of the research reported here partially fulfilled the requirements for the degree of PhD awarded to EMG by Boston College. Figure ;10 was created with BioRender.com.
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This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, NIDDK grant R01DK085721 to GDP.
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GDP & EMG conceptualized the study and supervised the experiment and directed the data analysis. EMG & GDP designed the experiments. EMG carried out the experiment, conducted histological preparation and analysis, and prepared figures. EMG & GDP wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Greiner, E.M., Petrovich, G.D. Recruitment of hippocampal and thalamic pathways to the central amygdala in the control of feeding behavior under novelty. Brain Struct Funct (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-024-02791-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-024-02791-7