ICLM Journal Club
This Week
10 April 2015 (YOUNG INVESTIGATOR SEMINAR)
Time: 09:30 am
Place : Gonda 2nd Floor Conference Room
Title: Corticostriatal Plasticity in Reward History and Addiction
Speaker: Andrew Thompson (Izquierdo Lab)
The striatum is important for learning from the decisions we make and altering behavior to maximize reward acquisition rate. Through dopaminergic modulation of the direct and indirect pathways, the striatum serves as a final ‘gate’ between impulse and action. Drugs of abuse such as methamphetamine exert their rewarding effects by increasing dopamine release to the striatum, reinforcing the preceding behaviors. Corticostriatal long-term potentiation occurs when three events coincide: presynaptic activation, postsynaptic activation, and time-locked phasic dopamine signaling. Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is released in an activity-dependent manner from cortical input neurons, triggering a phosphorylation event at the tropomyosin-related kinase B (TrkB) receptor, activating intracellular signaling pathways which strengthen the associated synapse. Therefore, periods of high and low TrkB signaling in the striatum create critical windows for reward learning. Here we show that methamphetamine and exercise alone are both able to transiently increase TrkB signaling in the rat striatum, but that pre-exposure to methamphetamine blocks the effect of exercise on this measure.
About Us
Introduction
The Integrative Center for Learning and Memory (ICLM) is a multidisciplinary center of UCLA labs devoted to understanding the neural basis of learning and memory and its disorders. This will require a unified approach across different levels of analysis, including;
1. Elucidating the molecular cellular and systems mechanisms that allow neurons and synapses to undergo the long-term changes that ultimately correspond to 'neural memories'.
2. Understanding how functional dynamics and computations emerge from complex circuits of neurons, and how plasticity governs these processes.
3. Describing the neural systems in which different forms of learning and memory take place, and how these systems interact to ultimately generate behavior and cognition.
History of ICLM
The Integrative Center for Learning and Memory formally LMP started in its current form in 1998, and has served as a platform for many interactions and collaborations within UCLA. A key event organized by the group is the weekly ICLM Journal Club. For more than 10 years, graduate students, postdocs, principal investigators, and invited speakers have presented on topics ranging from the molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity, through computational models of learning, to behavior and cognition. Dean Buonomano oversees the ICLM journal club with help of student/post doctoral organizers. For other events organized by ICLM go to http://www.iclm.ucla.edu/Events.html.
Current Organizers:
Walt Babiec (O'Dell Lab) & Helen Motanis (Buonomano Lab)
Current Faculty Advisor:
Past Organizers:
i) Anna Matynia(Aug 2004 - Jun 2008) (Silva Lab)
ii) Robert Brown (Aug 2008 - Jun 2009) (Balleine Lab)
iii) Balaji Jayaprakash (Aug 2008 - Nov 2011) (Silva Lab)
iv) Justin Shobe & Thomas Rogerson (Dec 2011 - June 2013) (Silva Lab)
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