Experience-dependent plasticity in an innate social behavior is mediated by hypothalamic LTP

Abstract

All animals can perform certain survival behaviors without prior experience, suggesting a "hard wiring" of underlying neural circuits. Experience, however, can alter the expression of innate behaviors. Where in the brain and how such plasticity occurs remains largely unknown. Previous studies have established the phenomenon of "aggression training," in which the repeated experience of winning successive aggressive encounters across multiple days leads to increased aggressiveness. Here we show that this procedure also leads to long-term potentiation (LTP) at an excitatory synapse, derived from the Anterior Hippocampus/Posterior Medial amygdala (AHiPM), onto estrogen receptor 1-expressing (Esr1+) neurons in the ventrolateral subdivision of the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMHvl). We demonstrate further that the optogenetic induction of such LTP in vivo facilitates, while optogenetic long-term depression (LTD) diminishes, the behavioral effect of aggression training, implying a causal role for potentiation at AHiPMVMHvlEsr1 synapses in mediating the effect of this training. Interestingly, [~]25% of inbred C57BL/6 mice fail to respond to aggression training. We show that these individual differences are correlated both with lower levels of testosterone, relative to mice that respond to such training, and with a failure to exhibit LTP in vivo after aggression training. Administration of exogenous testosterone to such non-aggressive mice restores both behavioral and physiological plasticity in vivo. Together, these findings reveal that LTP at a hypothalamic circuit node mediates a form of experience-dependent plasticity in an innate social behavior, and a potential hormone-dependent basis for individual differences in such plasticity among genetically identical mice. Significance StatementModification of instinctive behaviors occurs through experience, yet the mechanisms through which this happens have remained largely unknown. Recent studies have shown that potentiation of aggression, an innate behavior, can occur through repeated winning of aggressive encounters. Here we show that synaptic plasticity at a specific excitatory input to a hypothalamic cell population is correlated with, and required for, the expression of increasingly higher levels of aggressive behavior following successful aggressive experience. We additionally show that the amplitude and persistence of long-term potentiation at this synapse are influenced by serum testosterone, administration of which can normalize individual differences among genetically identical inbred mice, in the expression of intermale aggression.