Influence of reward devaluation on striatal activity

描述（由申请人提供）： 我们的长期目标是促进对神经行为系统的理解，特别是神经系统如何产生目标导向的行动。目标导向的行动被认为是由目标对象的神经表征指导的。为了有效地引导动物，它应该访问和使用关于动物内部状态的信息。应用程序的具体目的是研究奖励贬值如何影响纹状体活动。这一目标将完成在体内的单个纹状体神经元的电生理记录，而动物在不同的状态下的食物饱足和剥夺不同的奖励执行工具的歧视任务。我们关注纹状体是因为这个最初被认为参与一般运动启动和执行的大脑结构，现在被认为参与奖励信息的高级运动处理和目标导向行动的产生。我们认为纹状体是关于结果的外部特征与当前内部状态（即饥饿）的更新的信息会聚的关键部位，用于运动输出选择。该方案的一个关键组成部分是，我们将利用不同的预喂养方案来检查内部状态波动对行为相关活动的不同程度的影响，这些影响基于预喂养与预期奖励结果的相似性，这些包括1）感官特异性饱腹感。在这里，我们用测试情况下的一个可用结果2）一般饱腹感来预喂动物。在这里，我们用通常在家庭笼舍环境中提供的食物项目和3）食物限制而没有预喂养方案来预喂养动物。运动相关神经反应的三种进食前条件之间的神经活动差异将支持我们的假设，即纹状体中的行为相关活动获得了动机系统的改变并受到其影响。我们预计，内部状态变化与可获得结果的习得属性之间的关系越密切，这些内部状态偏差的影响就越大。这些结果对我们理解指导日常行动的基本心理操作以及治疗以情绪和行为功能障碍为特征的心理健康障碍具有重要意义。如果我们能够在神经行为层面上确定不同的交互影响，从而产生适当的目标导向行动，那么我们就可以开发出针对相关神经行为系统的更好的治疗方法，更具体地说，与情绪和行为障碍相关的内在整合神经操作。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Our long-term objective is to advance the understanding of neurobehavioral systems and in particular, how neural systems produce goal-directed action. Goal-directed action is thought to be guided by a neural representation of the goal object. For a representation to guide the animal efficiently, it should access and use information concerning the internal state of the animal. The specific aim of the application is to study how reward devaluation influences striatal activity. The aim will be completed using in vivo electrophysiological recording of single striatal neurons while animals under different states of food satiation and deprivation perform instrumental discrimination tasks for different rewards. We focus on the striatum because this brain structure originally thought to be involved in general movement initiation and execution, is now believed to be involved in higher motor processing of reward information and production of goal- directed action. We believe the striatum is critical site of convergence for information regarding both external characteristics of the outcome with updates of the current internal state (i.e. hunger) to be used for motor output selection. A key component of the protocol is that we will utilize different prefeeding regimens to examine the different degrees of influence that internal state fluctuations can have upon behavior-related activity based on the similarity the prefeeding has with the expected reward outcome, these include 1) sensory-specific satiety. Here we prefeed the animal with one of the available outcomes in the testing situation 2) general satiety. Here we prefeed the animal with the food item normally delivered in the home cage setting and 3) food restricted with no prefeeding regimen. Differences in neural activity between the three prefeeding conditions for motor-related neural responses will support our hypothesis that behavior-related activity in the striatum gains access to and is influenced by alterations in motivational systems. We expect that the closer the relationship between the internal state change and learned properties of the available outcome, the greater the influence by these internal state deviations. The results have great implications for our understanding of basic mental operations that guide daily actions and in the treatment of mental health disorders characterized by emotional and behavior dysfunction. If we can pinpoint the different interactive influences at the neurobehavioral level that produce appropriate goal-directed action, then we can develop better treatments targeting pertinent neurobehavioral systems and more specifically, the intrinsic, integrative neural operations relevant to emotional and behavioral disorders.