SoSexOT - Deciphering Oxytocin Circuitries Orchestrating Socio-Sexual Behavior

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Valery Grinevich
• Subject Area: Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 316694078

• Final Report Year: 2020

Final Report Abstract

Our ongoing anatomical study implementing retrograde rabies-based tracing, which revealed that parvocellular OT neurons receive at least 10-fold more inputs (preferentially from thalamic and brainstem regions) than magnocellular OT neurons. This together with functional data allows us to hypothesize that parvocellular oxytocin cells preferentially receive an input - via brainstem and thalamus - from sensory neurons of the spinal cord, and that they can, in turn, activate magnocellular oxytocin cells which modulate social behaviors by their projections to socially-relevant brain regions.

Publications

• (2019): A fear memory engram and its plasticity in the hypothalamic oxytocin system. Neuron, 103, 133-146
  Hasan, M.T., Althammer, F., da Silva Gouveia, M., Goyon, S., Eliava, M., Lefevre, A., Kerspern, D., Schimmer, J., Raftogianni, A., Wahis, J., Knobloch-Bollmann, H.S., Tang, Y., Liu, X., Jain, A., Chavant, V., Goumon, Y., Weislogel, J.-M., Hurlemann, R., Herpertz, S.C., Pitzer, C., Darbon, P., Dogbevia, G.K., Bertocchi, I., Larkum, M.E., Sprengel, R., Bading, H., Charlet, A. and Grinevich, V.
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.04.029)
• (2019): Chemogenetic activation of oxytocin neurons: Temporal dynamics, hormonal release, and behavioral consequences. Psychoneuroendocrinology 106, 77-84
  Grund, T., Tang, Y., Benusiglio, D., Althammer, F., Probst, S., Oppenlander, L., Neumann, I.D., and Grinevich, V.
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.03.019)
• Social touch promotes inter-female communication via activation of parvocellular oxytocin neurons. Nature Neurosci. (2020)
  Tang, Y., Benusiglio, D., Lefevre, A., Hilfiger, L., Althammer, F., Bludau, A., Hagiwara, D., Baudon, A., Darbon, P., Schimmer, J., Kirchner, M.K., Roy, R.K., Wang, S., Eliava, M., Wagner, S., Oberhuber, M., Conzelmann, K.K., Schwarz, M., Stern, J.E., Leng, G., Neumann, I.D., Charlet, A., Grinevich, V.
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-020-0674-y)