A prefrontal-thalamic circuit encodes social information for social recognition

Abstract

Social recognition encompasses encoding social information and distinguishing unfamiliar from familiar individuals to form social relationships. Although the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is known to play a role in social behavior, how identity information is processed and by which route it is communicated in the brain remains unclear. Here we report that a ventral midline thalamic area, nucleus reuniens (Re) that has reciprocal connections with the mPFC, is critical for social recognition in male mice. In vivo single-unit recordings and decoding analysis reveal that neural populations in both mPFC and Re represent different social stimuli, however, mPFC coding capacity is stronger. We demonstrate that chemogenetic inhibitions of Re impair the mPFC-Re neural synchronization and the mPFC social coding. Projection pathway-specific inhibitions by optogenetics reveal that the reciprocal connectivity between the mPFC and the Re is necessary for social recognition. These results reveal an mPFC-thalamic circuit for social information processing.

How the brain distinguishes familiar individuals from unfamiliar ones is not fully understood. Here, the authors show that neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex and thalamus encode social information and the two brain areas interact with each other to promote social recognition.