NeuroNetwork 8

Humans and animals developed innate behaviors supporting the survival in potentially dangerous situations. A well-known example is fear behavior in rodents induced by carnivore odor.

In our CBBS project, we want to identify and characterize the neural circuitry underlying carnivore odor-induced fear behavior. Therefore, an interdisciplinary approach using methods from in vivo imaging, neuroanatomy, and behavioral pharmacology, is used. In addition to natural carnivore odors (urine samples), we also want to use identified components of carnivore urines (e.g. 2-phenylethylamine), as well as odors with other emotional relevance (e.g. for social or foraging behavior) and odors which are learned as conditioned fear stimulus. Thus we expect not only to improve our knowledge on the neural basis of innate fear but also to gain more general information about the processing of innate and learned emotionally relevant odors.