ICLM Journal Club
This Week - 6 January 2017 (9:30 a.m., Gonda 2nd Floor Conference Room)
Speaker: Nina Lichtenberg
Title: A bottom-up amygdala-cortical circuit controls cue-triggered reward-expectation
Appropriate decision making often requires integrating what can be perceived in the environment (e.g., presence of stimuli, available actions) with information that is currently unobservable (e.g., knowledge of the specific stimulus- or action-reward relationships). The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and basolateral amygdala (BLA) are two identified key nodes in the circuit that support this expectation-guided reward seeking. Understanding of the function of this circuit is, however, limited by the fact that we do not know whether BLA-OFC circuitry contributes to the online control of decision making, whether any contribution of this circuit is via direct monosynaptic projections, or the direction of information transfer. Therefore, we used designer receptor-mediated inactivation of top-down OFC-BLA or bottom-up BLA-OFC monosynaptic projections to evaluate their respective contributions to the ability to retrieve a stored memory of a specific predicted reward and to use this expectation to guide and motivate reward seeking and decision making. BLA-OFC, but not OFC-BLA projections were found to be necessary for a cue-triggered reward expectation to selectively invigorate the performance of actions expected to earn the same unique reward. BLA-OFC projections were not necessary for a reward itself to similarly motivate action, suggesting a more selective role for this projection in the motivating influence of currently unobservable rewarding events. Moreover, these projections were required when reward expectations were generated by reward-predictive cues, but were not necessary when expectations were based on one’s own knowledge of action-reward relationships. These data reveal a new circuit controlling in the cued recall of precise reward memories and the use of this information to motivate specific action plans.
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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