ArticleNature neuroscience2023
Prefrontal circuits encode both general danger and specific threat representations.
Article in Nature neuroscience, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Medial prefrontal cortex encodes but is not required to generate goal-directed actions under threat.eLife · 2026Article
- Medial prefrontal cortex encodes but is not required to generate goal-directed actions under threat.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Functional bipartition of medial prefrontal cortex into salience detection and movement gain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- An amygdala-cortical circuit for encoding generalized fear memories.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Representation of Anticipated Rewards and Punishments in the Human Brain.Annual review of psychology · 2025Review
- Human Substantia Nigra Neurons Encode Reward Expectations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Neurobiology of Pathogen Avoidance and Mate Choice: Current and Future Directions.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Behavioral adaptation to potential threats requires both a global representation of danger to prepare the organism to react in a timely manner but also the identification of specific threatening situations to select the appropriate behavioral responses. The prefrontal cortex is known to control threat-related behaviors, yet it is unknown whether it encodes global defensive states and/or the identity of specific threatening encounters. Using a new behavioral paradigm that exposes mice to different threatening situations, we show that the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) encodes a general representation of danger while simultaneously encoding a specific neuronal representation of each threat. Importantly, the global representation of danger persisted in error trials that instead lacked specific threat identity representations. Consistently, optogenetic prefrontal inhibition impaired overall behavioral performance and discrimination of different threatening situations without any bias toward active or passive behaviors. Together, these data indicate that the prefrontal cortex encodes both a global representation of danger and specific representations of threat identity to control the selection of defensive behaviors.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.