Foraging entails a complex balance between approach and avoidance alongside sensorimotor and homeostatic processes under the control of multiple cortical and subcortical areas. Recently, it has become clear that several thalamic nuclei located near the midline regulate motivated behaviors. However, one midline thalamic nucleus that project to key nodes in the foraging network, the central medial (CMT) nucleus, has received little attention so far. Therefore, the present study examined CMT contributions to foraging behavior using inactivation and unit recording techniques in male rats. Inactivation of CMT or the basolateral amygdala (BLA) with muscimol abolished the rats’ normally cautious behavior in the foraging task. Moreover, CMT neurons showed large but heterogeneous activity changes during the foraging task, with many neurons decreasing or increasing their discharge rates, with a modest bias for the latter. A generalized linear model revealed that the nature (inhibitory vs. excitatory) and relative ma...