Abstract Social aggression is an innate behavior that can aid an organism in securing access to resources[1]. Aggression can also disrupt group function and reduce survival under conditions of behavioral pathology[2–4]. Since many brain regions contribute to multiple social behaviors[5–7], expanded knowledge of how the brain distinguishes between social states would enable the development of interventions that suppress aggression, while leaving other social behaviors intact. Here we show that a murine aggressive internal state is encoded by a brain-wide network. This network is organized by prominent theta (4-11Hz) and beta (14-30Hz) oscillations, leading from orbital frontal cortex and medial dorsal thalamus, and converging on ventral medial hypothalamus and medial amygdala. Activity in this network couples to brain-wide cellular firing, and the network is conserved in multiple contexts associated with aggression. Strikingly, network activity during social isolation encodes the trait aggressiveness of mice and causal cellular manipulations known to impact aggression bidirectionally regulate network activity. Finally, we show that the network plays a role in mediating aggressive behavior through causal mediation analysis. Thus, we define a brain-wide network that encodes an aggressive internal state within and across mice.

Brain-wide oscillatory network encodes an aggressive internal state