CAREER: The Role of Amygdalocortical Systems in Affect and Attention

生物体根据环境刺激的习得关联灵活调整其行为的能力对生物体的生存至关重要。在其他问题中，成功的适应依赖于注意的适当调节和对环境刺激的情感意义的准确评价或评价。杏仁核的两个不同的解剖部分，中央核和基底外侧复合体，被认为在许多依赖于联想学习的实验条件下的适应性行为中发挥作用。大量的皮层下和皮层解剖投影使杏仁核能够获得基本的感觉和躯体信息，并使其能够影响行为的输出。提出的工作主体旨在研究中央核和杏仁核基底外侧复合体及其组成的皮质/皮质系统在学习过程中调节注意力和情感评估中的作用。行为任务、神经记录（单个单元）神经化学操作和损伤技术的结合将用于收集调查这些问题的数据。一旦收集到数据，将与计算建模师合作，寻求对神经放电特性进行替代分析的技术。此外，这个研究项目将作为一个工具，为学生提供多个学术水平的研究机会（高中到博士后）。这种方法的一个关键组成部分将包括培训研究人员从事科学工作，同时为他们提供教授他人的技能和机会。最终，这将导致一项旨在提供独特的科学机会和信息的社区外展努力，这些机会和信息可能有助于吸引更多不同群体的年轻人参与科学。

Chiba abstractAn organism's ability to flexibly adapt its behavior based on the learned associations of environmental stimuli can be critical to the survival of that organism. Among other issues, successful adaptation relies on both appropriate modulation of attention and an accurate appraisal or evaluation of the affective significance of environmental stimuli. Two distinct anatomical divisions of the amygdala, the central nucleus and the basolateral complex, are thought to play a role in adaptive behavior under many experimental conditions that depend on associative learning. Numerous subcortical and cortical anatomical projections allow the amygdala access to basic sensory and somatic information, and also position it to affect the output of behavior. The proposed body of work is aimed towards the investigation of the role of the central nucleus and the basolateral complex of the amygdala and their constituent corticopetal/cortical systems in modulating attention and affective evaluation during learning. A combination of behavioral tasks, neural recording (single units) neurochemical manipulations, and lesion techniques will be used to gather data investigating these issues. Once the data are gathered, techniques for alternative analysis of the neural firing properties will be pursued in a collaborative effort with computational modelers.Additionally, this research program will be used as a vehicle to provide research opportunities for students at multiple academic levels (high school through post-doctoral). A critical component of this approach will include training researchers to do science while providing them with the skills and opportunities to teach others. Ultimately, this will result in a community outreach effort aimed towards providing unique scientific opportunities and information that may serve to draw a more diverse group of young people to the sciences.