| 研究実績の概要 |
In the natural environment, adapting to variations in foraging and courtship, which are highly dynamic and often not immediately successful, are critical for survival. In the face of unexpected events, having the motivation to overcome disappointments and to pursue one's goals is an important ability that ensures survival in a changing environment. However, the neural mechanisms governing such motivation has been less explored. Here, this study introduces a novel rat behavior task that strongly induces the motivation to overcome disappointment (i.e. omission of reward), combined with calcium imaging technique at single-cell resolution. With this approach, it has been possible to measure the calcium activity of many dopamine neurons simultaneously and thus, suitable for solving the questions in this study.
Overall, this study aims to clarify the central neural mechanisms responsible for overcoming the omission of reward, focusing on the nature of the activity of the new type of DN whose response to reward omission is increased. As a result, this study will fill a major gap in our understanding of dopamine function in the brain, and on the overall neural mechanisms of reward learning.
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| 現在までの達成度 (区分) |
現在までの達成度 (区分)
2: おおむね順調に進展している
理由
Our in vivo imaging approach has revealed that a subpopulation of dopamine neurons in a part of the midbrain increased their activity in response to the omission of an expected reward.
By employing this technique, we have successfully recorded the activity of many dopamine neurons simultaneously, from the early to later stages of learning.
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| 今後の研究の推進方策 |
Following the identification of new dopamine neurons, we plan to reveal how the activity of these neurons is generated through the learning process. To do this, we will examine what happens during the early stage of learning and what the change from early to the later stage of learning is, and to what exact attributes the dopamine neuron is responding. To this end, it is necessary to continuously measure the activity of as many dopamine neurons as possible at cellular resolution.
Further, to explore how this information is transmitted to the striatum, we aim to image dopamine activity in the nucleus accumbens.
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