SSA:Encoding of decision making by dopamine neurons

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Understanding how we make decisions in the face of uncertainty and how we weigh risk and rewardremains a central challenge for neuroscience. It is clear that signalling by dopamine plays a pivotal rolein these calculations. However, the dopamine neurons responsible for these signals are diverse interms of the anatomical connections they make, their molecular make-up, and their encoding ofbehaviour; it is not clear how these different populations generate the signals used for decisionmaking. The focus of this PhD is to define how different populations of dopamine neurons encodeaspects of decision-making and action. To achieve this, we will use an innovative approach, combiningcutting-edge neurophysiological techniques and advanced computational models:To record from individual dopamine neurons in behaving mice we will take advantage of a newtechnique we recently developed (Dodson et al. 2015, 2016). This approach not only allows one toidentify the precise location and neurochemical identity of each recorded neuron, but also tointerrogate which key proteins they express and which brain regions they innervate (and thussubdivide neurons into their different populations). We will then use computational models to probehow the signals we record are related to different parts of the decision-making process.During the PhD, the student will have the opportunity to learn, and develop their skills in: in vivorecording, animal behaviour, neuroanatomy and immunohistochemistry, microscopy, data analysisand programming, and computational modelling.