Fast sensory representations in the lateral hypothalamus and their roles in brain function.

Edward F Bracey, Denis Burdakov

Physiology & behavior 2020 Aug 01

filter terms:

The lateral hypothalamus (LH) is critical for generating context-appropriate actions. LH deficits uncouple behaviour and motor control from internal and external environmental influences. Non-specific LH lesions produce apathy, akinesia, and weight loss. Targeted impairments of brain-wide-projecting LH cells, such as orexin or GABA neurons, result in context-inappropriate arousal and motor control, and pathological eating. Generating timely adaptive actions requires timely updating of neural representations of context. Here we review how activity patterns of different LH neurons represent rapid external events on subsecond timescales. We discuss experience-dependent plasticity of these representations and their impact on wider neural processing and sensorimotor control, with a focus on LH orexin neurons. We highlight key questions, such as neural origins of rapid LH dynamics, and whether LH encodes sensory or motor activity. Real-time monitoring of fast LH dynamics during learning will be vital for understanding the elusive algorithms that allow the brain to combine fast and slow variables to guide actions. Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Citation

Edward F Bracey, Denis Burdakov. Fast sensory representations in the lateral hypothalamus and their roles in brain function. Physiology & behavior. 2020 Aug 01;222:112952