TITLE: Neural circuits underlying the invigoration of reward-seeking

Abstract:
Cues in our environment can gain the ability to powerfully influence our decision making and behavior. Importantly, the degree to which these cues are powerful, and the nature of the behaviors that they generate, is modulated by changes in our physiological and affective state. In particular I am interested in defining the neural systems underlying the incentive motivational properties of cues, that is, their ability to elicit and invigorate reward seeking actions, and in determining the degree to which signaling in these circuits represents a common mechanism for the invigoration of reward seeking, and the influence of changes in state. Most recently, I have focused my investigation of these properties on the rat ventral pallidum, where I found robust encoding of cue-elicited reward seeking vigor. By parsing the contributions of specific inputs to the ventral pallidum to this encoding I hope to reveal the neural and psychological building blocks of this incentive motivational signal. Additionally, by assessing changes in neural encoding of cue-elicited reward seeking across states that influence reward seeking, such as physiological need, withdrawal or stress, I aim to reverse engineer the neural circuits that contribute to exaggerated motivation under these conditions.