Frontal striatal systems and dopamine in normal and pathological behavior

我们的实验室与临床小组合作，研究精神分裂症和帕金森病患者的行为，使用参与额纹状体系统的任务，看看患者是否在这些任务中表现出缺陷。 我们的策略是识别患者群体中的行为缺陷，然后使用神经科学工具来追踪这些缺陷，试图了解群体中行为差异的机制。 具体而言，我们在患者群体中进行行为研究，以确定区分患者和对照组的任务。 一旦确定了这些行为，我们就可以使用神经成像来识别控制组和患者组中反应不同的大脑区域。 我们也可以在对照组中使用药理学操作，试图改变他们的行为，以匹配患者组。 在此之后，可以使用更详细的技术来尝试检查构成群体之间行为差异的电路机制。 最终目标是检查神经调节剂在微电路水平的影响，并将微电路水平的处理变化与行为变化联系起来，以帮助阐明精神分裂症，帕金森病和相关疾病的病理学基础。

Our lab is engaged in collaborations with clinical groups to examine behavior in patients with schizophrenia and Parkinsons disease, using tasks which engage frontal-striatal systems to see if patients show deficits in these tasks. Our strategy is to identify behavioural deficits in patient groups, and then to pursue those deficits using neuroscientific tools, to try to understand the mechanisms that underlie the behavioral differences in groups. Specifically, we carry out behavioural studies in patient groups to identify tasks that differentiate patient and control groups. Once these behaviours have been identified, we can use neuroimaging to identify the brain regions that are responding differently in the control and patients groups. We can also use pharmacological manipulations in control groups to try to modify their behaviour to match the patient group. Following that, more detailed techniques can be used to try to examine the circuit mechanisms that underlie the differences in behaviour between the groups. The ultimate goal is to examine the effects of neuromodulators at the micro-circuit level, and to link changes in processing at the microcircuit level to changes in behaviour, to help elucidate the pathology that underlies schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease and related disorders.