Making sense of changing external and internal environments: New mechanistic insights from motivational and sensory systems
Making sense of changing external and internal environments: New mechanistic insights from motivational and sensory systems
Topic: Cognition and behaviour
Sunday 23rd April, 13:00 – 14:40 BST
Supported by Sussex Neuroscience
Our ability to integrate and flexibly adapt to ever-changing external and internal environments is crucial for adaptive behaviour. For example, we need to integrate both sensory and spatial information to construct an accurate contextual representation of the environment for navigation, or we adjust our responses to cues that predict food availability based on our current nutritional needs or desirability of food. This symposium will shed new light on the circuit-specific and neuronal ensemble mechanisms within mesocorticolimbic and sensory cortical brain areas regarding how internal and external stimuli are processed. We will highlight recent studies that employ a diverse array of approaches that provide detailed mechanistic insight into these processes including in vivo fibre photometry, voltammetry, and in vivo and ex vivo electrophysiology.
- Eisuke Koya, University of Sussex, UK: The modulation of cue-evoked food seeking: Prefrontal cortex ensemble mechanisms
- Lauren Burgeno, The University of Oxford, UK: Tracking Striatal Cholinergic Activity During Flexible Decision Making
- Leslie Ramsey, National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program, USA: Characterizing prefrontal cortical neuronal ensembles that encode volitional social interaction
- James McCutcheon, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Norway: Exploring the neural and behavioural signatures of protein appetite