CAREER: The Role of Amygdalocortical Systems in Affect and Attention

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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.