{"doi":"10.1101/2023.11.01.565073","title":"Neuropeptide Signaling is Required to Implement a Line Attractor Encoding a Persistent Internal Behavioral State","abstract":"ABSTRACT Internal states drive survival behaviors, but their neural implementation is not well understood. Recently we identified a line attractor in the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) that represents an internal state of aggressiveness. Line attractors can be implemented by recurrent connectivity and/or neuromodulatory signaling, but evidence for the latter is scant. Here we show that neuropeptidergic signaling is necessary for line attractor dynamics in this system, using a novel approach that integrates cell type-specific, anatomically restricted CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing with microendoscopic calcium imaging. Co-disruption of receptors for oxytocin and vasopressin in adult VMH Esr1 + neurons that control aggression suppressed attack, reduced persistent neural activity and eliminated line attractor dynamics, while only modestly impacting neural activity and sex- or behavior-tuning. These data identify a requisite role for neuropeptidergic signaling in implementing a behaviorally relevant line attractor. Our approach should facilitate mechanistic studies in neuroscience that bridge different levels of biological function and abstraction.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2023,"id":391125,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":8,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.96,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":986456,"name":"Aditya Nair","orcid":"0000-0001-5242-5527","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":986457,"name":"Bin Yang","orcid":"0000-0002-3878-1530","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":474692,"name":"Dong‐Wook Kim","orcid":"0000-0002-5025-1532","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":283089,"name":"David J. Anderson","orcid":"0000-0001-6175-3872","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":15469,"name":"George Mountoufaris","orcid":"0000-0002-0240-9745","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":120,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:18:42.653719Z","pmid":"37961374","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}