Description:

" Exploring the neural dynamics of dopamine neurons in motivated behavior " 

 Despite decades of research on the properties of ventral tegmental area (VTA)
dopamine neurons, the precise information encoded by these cells in reward learning and 
motivated behaviors remains uncertain. I will describe recent work on two distinct modalities of the midbrain dopamine system at different levels of investigation. In the first, I will describe the complex neural circuitry that connects nociception and the dopamine system, revealing how pain may influence learning and behavior. In the second, I will present recent work leveraging an approach that combines Neuropixels and optogenetics to record dopamine cells at the single cell level. In conjunction with computational modeling, we used this approach to explore the neural dynamics of dopamine subpopulations in different VTA subregions in mice performing a reward seeking task. Together, our experiments are geared towards developing a more unifying framework of dopamine’s diverse roles in motivated behavior.

Friday June 23, 2023
CTPR Seminar Series 
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Location: Ward 5-230

*UPDATE: TIME CHANGE 

Dr. Stephan Lammel 
Associate Professor of Neurobiology, Molecular and Cell Biology
Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
Berkeley