Mitochondrial dysfunction in medial amygdala neurons disrupts social defensive behaviors in mice

In nature, agonistic encounters are common and involve, in general, a dispute for environmental resources, such as food, territory, or sexual partners. In this sense, social defense behavior is essential for an individual`s survival and for maintaining the integrity of the group. For the animal to defend itself against a conspecific, it must recognize it properly. The medial amygdala (MeA) is one of the main centers for processing olfactory cues from a conspecific, being important for the expression of defense during social defeat. Recently, several studies suggest the importance of mitochondria for an adequate response to stress generated by social defeat. In this work, we investigated how mitochondrial dysfunction caused by the deletion of mitofusin-1 and 2 genes in MeA neurons impacts the defensive behavioral response of mice during social defeat.