Mehran Ahmadlou - Neuroscience Neural Circuits Underlying Approach-Avoidance Strategies in a Territorial Context'

Survival in territorial environments demands adaptive behaviour, as animals must balance access to resources with the risks of competition and predation. In the wild, animals must recognize when and where resources can be obtained, while simultaneously avoiding predators and navigating social hierarchies. Failures in these underlying circuits can manifest as anxiety-associated disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, impulsivity, anhedonia, depression, or pathological aggression. Understanding how animals adapt—or fail to adapt—in resource-limited, semi-natural contexts can therefore provide critical insight into the neural basis of mental health disorders. In this project, the Neurobehavior Lab, run by Mehran Ahmadlou, will investigate how neural circuits governing approach, avoidance, and defensive aggression support survival in complex environments. Freely moving mice will forage for nutritional resources in a territorial arena, competing with conspecifics for access while adapting to predatory threats. Using a combination of optogenetics, chemogenetics, Neuropixels recording, and miniaturized two-photon imaging, we will dissect how the brain integrates internal states with external challenges to guide adaptive strategy. Particular focus will be given to networks spanning the prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, and midbrain survival circuits (periaqueductal gray, superior colliculus, and ventral tegmental area). To bridge the neural activity and behaviour, we will employ computational modeling approaches to capture how animals adjust their strategies and how circuit-level perturbations alter these computations. By resolving neural dynamics at the population and single-cell level, and linking them to quantitative models of decision-making, we will uncover how distributed circuits generate flexible territorial behaviours. By mapping the neural basis of behavioural flexibility in territoriality, this work will illuminate how adaptive survival strategies are generated—and how their breakdown drives neuropsychiatric conditions.