Basal ganglia and relative reward effect

描述(由申请人提供)：精神疾病的一个决定性特征是行为控制的丧失和冲动的上升，糟糕的决策，以及个人所做的和他们想做的之间的脱节。有一种直观而直观的测量或“效果”，可以用来检查做出选择和发展偏好的行为规则所涉及的基本心理过程。相对奖赏效应(RRE)被观察为过去或未来结果对当前结果的神经或行为影响。这是一种探索初级结果比较的方法，这种比较在不同的生物中高度保守。许多行为科学家已经对其进行了研究，越来越多的神经科学文献支持纹状体和杏仁核的参与。我们自己以前的研究发现，RREs对纹状体的神经活动有显著的影响；然而，我们没有回答这些影响在这种不同的大脑结构中如何变化的问题。背侧和腹侧纹状体接受截然不同的输入，并被认为参与了不同的功能。此外，我们打算研究纹状体和杏仁核之间的RRE是如何变化的--这两个相互关联的大脑区域参与形成情绪状态和运动输出之间的联系。我们将使用最先进的神经生理学方法来记录在相对简单的单一奖励环境和更复杂的混合奖励环境中表现的动物的单个单位。将完成对这些简单和复杂情况下的神经和行为数据的比较。此外，我们还包括一项记录纹状体神经反应前杏仁核失活的研究。这种方法是一种创新和灵敏的方法，可以探索这两个大脑区域在处理事件的相对属性时的依赖关系。我们的长期目标是破译纹状体及其不同的输入是如何分布的，并计算奖励信息以产生适当的行为。这一发现将为理解精神疾病中信息流如何中断导致情绪和行为问题开辟道路。在精神疾病中，纹状体和杏仁核都被发现是调节失调的。尽管在理解上取得了这些重大进展，但对于结果信息在病理状态下如何不同地处理，以及总体上，什么功能结果应归因于与行为相关的大脑活动的变化，仍知之甚少。所获得的数据将为思考这些问题提供新的方法，并扩大与精神健康有关的神经处理的研究，这是国家精神健康研究所使命的重要组成部分。这些项目为培训学生提供了一个丰富而有吸引力的环境，从长远来看，这些方法将成为行为神经科学的一部分。将为渴望研究精神疾病生物学的年轻人创造新的就业机会和促进他们的职业发展。 公共健康相关性：该项目包含与心理健康的广泛相关性，因为它是对大脑如何随着时间的推移进行比较以及这些比较如何导致更好的选择的调查。这是一个无处不在的过程，当适应性地进行时，它会带来积极的情绪、适当的选择和健康的心理状态。描绘纹状体和杏仁核等大脑区域如何参与这些基本过程的细节，为研究同样的能力如何在精神疾病中丧失能力，以及新的治疗方法如何恢复适应性大脑功能和行为打开了大门。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): One of the defining characteristics of mental disease is the loss of behavioral control and the rise of impulsiveness, poor decision making and a disconnect between what individuals do and what they want to do. There is a perceptive and straightforward measure or 'effect' that can be used to examine fundamental psychological processes involved in behavioral regulation of making choices and developing preferences. The relative reward effect (RRE) is observed as a neural or behavioral influence from past or future outcomes on the present outcome. It is a way of exploring primary outcome comparisons that is highly conserved across diverse organisms. It has been studied by numerous behavioral scientists, and the growing neuroscience literature supports involvement of the striatum and amygdala. Our own previous studies found significant RREs on neural activity in the striatum; however, we left the question open as to how these effects vary within this diverse brain structure. The dorsal and ventral striatum receive dramatically different inputs and are thought to be involved in distinct functions. Additionally, we intend to examine how the RRE varies between the striatum and amygdala- two interconnected brain regions involved in forming links between emotional states and motor output. We will use the most advanced neurophysiological methods to record single units in behaving animals during performance in relatively simple, single reward environments and more complex mixed reward environments. Comparisons on neural and behavioral data between these simple and more complex situations will be completed. Moreover, we include a study with inactivation of amygdala preceding recording striatal neural responses. This method is an innovative and sensitive way to explore the reliance between these two brain areas in processing relative properties of events. Our long-term goal is to decipher how the striatum and its diverse inputs distribute and compute reward information to produce appropriate behavior. The findings will open the way to understand how information flow breaks down in mental illness causing emotional and behavioral problems. The striatum and amygdala have both been found to be dysregulated in mental illness. Despite these major advances in understanding, there is limited knowledge for how outcome information is processed differently during pathological states and overall, what functional consequence to attribute to alterations in brain activity related to behavior. Data acquired will provide new ways to think about these issues and expand the study of neural processing related to mental health which is an essential part of the National Institute of Mental Health mission. The projects provide a rich and engaging environment for training students in methods that will be part of behavioral neuroscience in the long-term. New jobs will be created and careers fostered for young people eager to work on the biology of mental illness. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The project contains extensive relevance to mental health in that it is an investigation of how the brain makes comparisons over time and how these comparisons lead to better choices. This is an ubiquitous process and when done adaptively, it leads to positive affect, appropriate choices and healthy mental states. Delineating the details for how brain areas like the striatum and amygdala are involved in these fundamental processes opens the door to studying how the same abilities become disabled in mental illness and how new therapies can reinstate adaptive brain function and behavior.