Neural circuit elements that orchestrate cue-reward associations

项目摘要： 编码和调节线索-奖励关联建立的神经回路， 对于生存至关重要的过程，可能在神经精神疾病中变得功能失调，如药物依赖性疾病， 成瘾虽然线索-奖赏关联的完整编码需要一个分布式的脑核团网络 腹侧被盖区的神经元和上游回路协调行为输出， 皮质和下丘脑被认为在奖赏预测和分配激励中起着重要作用 对环境线索的突出性，例如与重复使用药物有关的线索。在这 应用，我们提出了最先进的脑深部双光子成像在清醒和行为小鼠研究 这些回路中的编码特性是如何出现的，以及在初级奖励暴露过程中是如何改变的， 在联想学习中很好。这些实验将提供重要的机械信息来解释如何 奖赏回路编码并控制线索-奖赏关联的发展和表达， 成瘾

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.