{
  "abstract": "Sensory stimuli associated with aversive outcomes cause multiple behavioral responses related to an animal's evolving emotional state, but neural mechanisms underlying these processes remain unclear. Here aversive stimuli were presented to mice, eliciting two responses reflecting fear and flight to safety: tremble and ingress into a virtual burrow. Inactivation of basolateral amygdala (BLA) eliminated differential responses to aversive and neutral stimuli without eliminating responses themselves, suggesting BLA signals valence, not motor commands. However, two-photon imaging revealed that neurons typically exhibited mixed selectivity for stimulus identity, valence, tremble and/or ingress. Despite heterogeneous selectivity, BLA representational geometry was lower-dimensional when encoding valence, tremble and safety, enabling generalization of emotions across conditions. Further, tremble and valence coding directions were orthogonal, allowing linear readouts to specialize. Thus BLA representational geometry confers two computational properties that identify specialized neural circuits encoding variables describing emotional states: generalization across conditions, and readouts lacking interference from other readouts.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA",
    "The Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA",
    "The Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, New York, NY, USA",
    "Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA",
    "ICM Paris Brain Institute, Hôpital de la Pitié Salpêtrière, Paris, France",
    "Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA",
    "New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA",
    "Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY, USA",
    "Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics, Seattle, WA, USA",
    "Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA",
    "Department of Neurobiology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA",
    "Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA",
    "Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. cds2005@columbia.edu",
    "Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. cds2005@columbia.edu",
    "Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. cds2005@columbia.edu",
    "New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA. cds2005@columbia.edu",
    "The Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. cds2005@columbia.edu",
    "Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY USA",
    "Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, New York, NY USA"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 8,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Pia-Kelsey O’Neill",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3349-2024"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3,
        0,
        4,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Lorenzo Posani",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1135-1300"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5,
        6
      ],
      "name": "József Mészáros",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-2485-0144"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        7,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Phebe Warren"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        8,
        0,
        9,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Carl Edward Schoonover",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6397-1010"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        10,
        0,
        9,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Andrew J. P. Fink",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4191-3298"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3,
        0,
        11,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Stefano Fusi",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-3035-6652"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        12,
        13,
        14,
        15,
        16,
        17,
        0,
        5,
        18,
        6,
        2
      ],
      "name": "C. Daniel Salzman",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-7501-5480"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5mxt52p7481sb.bib",
  "cited_by": 15,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41593-026-02315-y",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "5mxt52p7481sb",
  "issns": [
    "1097-6256",
    "1546-1726"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02315-y",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC-ND",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC-ND",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
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      "openalex",
      "2805|Memory and Neural Mechanisms"
    ]
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  "openalex": "W4386998197",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC10542536",
  "pmid": "37790470",
  "published": "2026-06-03",
  "publisher": "Nature Portfolio",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5mxt52p7481sb.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T13:26:53Z",
      "native_id": "W4386998197",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02315-y"
    }
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  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:2805|Memory and Neural Mechanisms",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "The representational geometry of emotional states in basolateral amygdala",
  "title_text": "The representational geometry of emotional states in basolateral amygdala",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-04T13:21:11Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5mxt52p7481sb",
  "venue": "Nature Neuroscience",
  "versions": []
}