Neural circuit elements that orchestrate cue-reward associations

项目总结： 编码和调节线索-奖赏关联建立的神经回路，一种自适应的 对于生存至关重要的过程，很可能在药物等神经精神疾病中变得功能失调 上瘾。而线索-奖赏关联的完整编码需要大脑核团的分布式网络 共同协调行为输出，腹侧被盖区和上行回路中的神经元在 大脑皮层和下丘脑被认为在奖赏预测和激励分配中起着重要作用。 对环境线索的重视，例如那些与反复吸毒有关的线索。在这 应用，我们建议对最先进的脑深部双光子成像在清醒和行为小鼠中进行研究 在初级奖赏暴露期间，这些回路内的编码属性是如何出现和改变的，如 擅长联想学习。这些实验将提供重要的机械信息来解释 奖赏回路编码和控制提示-奖赏关联的发展和表达 上瘾。

Project Summary: The neural circuitry that encodes and mediates the establishment of cue-reward associations, an adaptive process that is essential for survival, likely becomes dysfunctional in neuropsychiatric illnesses such as drug addiction. While the full encoding of cue-reward associations require a distributed network of brain nuclei acting in concert to orchestrate behavioral output, neurons in ventral tegmental area and upstream circuits in cortex and hypothalamus are thought to play an important role in reward prediction and assigning incentive salience to environmental cues such as those that become associated with repeated drug use. In this application, we propose to state of the art deep brain two-photon imaging in awake and behaving mice to study how the encoding properties within these circuits emerge and are altered during primary reward exposure as well in associative learning. These experiments will provide important mechanistic information to explain how reward circuits encode and control the development and expression of cue-reward associations relevant to addiction.