Basal ganglia and relative reward effect

描述（由申请人提供）：精神疾病的定义特征之一是行为失控，冲动增加，决策能力差，个人所做的和他们想做的之间脱节。有一种直观而直接的测量方法或“效果”，可以用来检查涉及做出选择和发展偏好的行为调节的基本心理过程。相对奖励效应（RRE）被认为是过去或未来结果对当前结果的神经或行为影响。这是一种探索主要结果比较的方法，在不同的生物体中高度保守。许多行为科学家对此进行了研究，越来越多的神经科学文献支持纹状体和杏仁核参与其中。我们之前的研究发现纹状体的神经活动有显著的RREs；然而，对于这些影响在不同的大脑结构中是如何变化的，我们留下了一个悬而未决的问题。背侧纹状体和腹侧纹状体接受截然不同的输入，被认为参与不同的功能。此外，我们打算研究纹状体和杏仁核之间的RRE变化，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行为动物在相对简单、单一奖励环境和更复杂的混合奖励环境中的表现。将完成这些简单和更复杂情况之间的神经和行为数据的比较。此外，我们还包括一项在记录纹状体神经反应之前进行杏仁核失活的研究。这种方法是探索这两个大脑区域在处理事件相关属性时的依赖关系的一种创新和灵敏的方法。我们的长期目标是破译纹状体和它的不同输入如何分配和计算奖励信息，以产生适当的行为。这一发现将为理解精神疾病中导致情绪和行为问题的信息流是如何中断的开辟道路。纹状体和杏仁核都被发现在精神疾病中失调。尽管在理解方面取得了这些重大进展，但对于病理状态下结果信息是如何被不同地处理的，以及总的来说，与行为相关的大脑活动的改变导致了什么样的功能后果，我们的知识有限。获得的数据将为思考这些问题提供新的途径，并扩展与心理健康相关的神经处理研究，这是国家心理健康研究所使命的重要组成部分。这些项目为培养学生的方法提供了丰富而有吸引力的环境，这些方法将成为长期行为神经科学的一部分。将为渴望从事精神疾病生物学研究的年轻人创造新的就业机会，培养新的职业。

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.