Abstract
ABSTRACTThe lateral septal nucleus (LS) plays a critical role in emotionality, social behavior and feeding processes, through neural connections with the hippocampus and hypothalamus. We investigated the neural circuits of LS by using herpes simplex virus 1 strain H129 (H129) and pseudorabies virus stain Bartha (PRV). Virus H129 indicates that LS directly projects to some cerebral nuclei (nucleus accumbens, bed nuclei of the stria terminalis and amygdala), part of the hypothalamus (median preoptic, paraventricular, dorsomedial nucleus and lateral area), thalamus (medial habenula, the paraventricular, parataenial and reuniens nuclei, and the medial line nuclei) and the pontine central gray. Then the LS has secondary projections to the CA3 and CA1 field of the hippocampal formation, lateral and medial preoptic area, and the mammillary body. PRV tracing shows that LS are mainly receiving primary inputs from the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamic, thalamus, midbrain and hindbrain, and secondary inputs from dorsal and central linear nucleus raphe, the lateral part of the superior central nucleus raphe, the ventral anterior-lateral complex, the intermediodorsal nucleus, the central medial nucleus, the rhomboid nucleus, and the submedial nucleus of the thalamus. The neural circuit data revealed here could help to understand and further research on the function of LS.
Highlights
The lateral septal nucleus (LS) is the rostrodorsal part of the septal region, dorsolateral adjacent to the medial septal complex
In the LS, some neurotransmitters such as substance P and serotonin modulate stress response (Gavioli et al, 1999; Ebner et al, 2008); some cell-surface receptors such as vasopressin V1a receptor, metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 and dopamine receptor 3 are involved in complex social behavior (Bielsky et al, 2005; Mesic et al, 2015; Shin et al, 2018); others such as urocortin and endogenous glucagon-like peptide-1 modulate feeding (Wang and Kotz, 2002; Terrill et al, 2018)
Our results show that a low dose of virus H129 enables the tracing of explicit second-order projection sites in the medial septal nucleus, hypothalamus and hippocampus, and pseudorabies virus stain Bartha (PRV) enables the tracing of specific second-order projection sites in the thalamus and raphe nuclei
Summary
The lateral septal nucleus (LS) is the rostrodorsal part of the septal region, dorsolateral adjacent to the medial septal complex. According to Allen Mouse Brain Atlas (Lein et al, 2007), LS in mice consists of caudal, rostral and ventral sections (LSc, LSr and LSv). Extensive studies have been focused on the functions of LS, such as its critical role in emotionality, social behavior, and feeding. Optogenetics activates the connections between the LS and hypothalamus, which can modulate food intake in mice (Sweeney and Yang, 2015, 2016)
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