| First Author | Piantadosi PT | Year | 2026 |
| Journal | Neuron | Volume | 114 |
| Issue | 17 | Pages | 3295-3314.e11 |
| PubMed ID | 41997147 | Mgi Jnum | J:392250 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:8324145 | Doi | 10.1016/j.neuron.2026.03.033 |
| Citation | Piantadosi PT, et al. (2026) Risk reshapes amygdala representation of choice. Neuron |
| abstractText | Modifying behavior in response to changing environmental conditions is a crucial adaptive function. This capacity is evident when animals curtail the pursuit of a valued outcome that risks being punished, but the mediating brain mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, using in vivo cellular-resolution calcium (Ca(2+)) imaging, optogenetics, and chemogenetics, we show that punishment risk dramatically alters choice between a large/risky and small/safe reward and produces novel, causally necessary patterns of activity in basolateral amygdala (BLA) neurons of male mice. We find that punishment generates a BLA representation that is reactivated when mice execute or abort the choice of a large/risky reward option. Additionally, we show that risk leads to the incorporation of newly encoding BLA neurons into the pre-choice representation and that this modification predicts avoidance of the large/risky option. Collectively, these findings reveal how dynamic reshaping of choice-related BLA representations underpins behavioral flexibility in the face of risk. |
