Basic and Plastic Instincts : Brain Mechanisms of Adaptation in Innate Behaviours

Adaptation is a prerequisite for survival, at the species level, but also for the individual.

Animals, including humans, have developed innate behaviours to ensure consistent, rapid and appropriate responses to sudden threats and opportunities for survival.

However, innate behaviours do not remain fixed over lifetime, and change as the circumstances of life and access to resources fluctuate. The brain mechanisms that allow circuits to adapt remain poorly understood.

These issues will be explored here, with a focus on aggression and parenting, two innate social behaviours for which we have recently characterized key neuronal populations. Specifically, we will:I.

Examine the involvement of reward, hormones and circuit plasticity in the formation of dominance-subordinate relationships,II.

Investigate the mechanisms that allow for the transient expression of a behavioural phenotype in maternal aggression,III.

Examine which changes enable the maturation of a circuit towards network activity that sustains adult behaviour, andIV.Explore how membrane properties and connectivity interact to enable circuit performance that is at once robust and flexible.The aims will be addressed by recording and manipulating neuronal activity in genetically manipulated rodents in vivo and in vitro. - Maladaptation is a core feature of many neuropsychiatric disorders; the results from this project may thus offer new insights into the brain’s capacity for change that can be exploited for therapy.