ICLM Journal Club
This Week - 15 April 2022 (9:30 a.m., via Zoom)
Speaker: Austin Coley
Title: “ Investigating mPFC valence-specific neuronal populations during anhedonia. ”
Summary: Anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure and is a core symptom in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as major depressive disorder (MDD) and schizophrenia (SCZ). The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is implicated in anhedonia due to imbalances in dopamine (DA) concentrations. Dopamine in the PFC has been implicated in processing negatively valence stimuli (Vander Weele et al., 2018a), and can produce avoidance (Gunaydin et al., 2014), but is suggested to be a major component in reward prediction (Schultz et al., 1997), indicating that DA modulates mPFC encoding of both positive and negative valence in behavior. However, it remains unknown how DA modulates mPFC valence-specific neurons during anhedonia. We hypothesize that mPFC valence-specific neuronal populations are differentially regulated via DA transmission and are altered during stress-induced anhedonia. To study this, we implemented depression induced protocols such as learned helplessness (LH) and chronic mild stress (CMS) paradigms to induce anhedonia within mice. Using in vivo 2-photon Ca2+ imaging and behavioral phenotypic classification techniques, we examined mPFC-valence specific neuronal population activity within anhedonic mice. These findings will provide a greater understanding of the activity and dynamics in mPFC valence-specific neuronal populations during anhedonia.
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:
Megha Sehgal (Silva Lab) & Giselle Fernandes (Silva Lab). Please email us at iclm.journalclub@gmail.com if you would like to get regular updates regarding our journal club and weekly reminders.
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)
v) Walt Babiec (O'Dell Lab) (2013-2014)
vi) Walt Babiec (O'Dell Lab) & Helen Motanis (Buonomano Lab) (2014-2017)
vii) Helen Motanis (Buonomano Lab) & Shonali Dhingra (Mehta Lab) (2017-2018)
viii) Shonali Dhingra (Mehta Lab) (2018-2020)
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