Title: Dissecting the Neural Circuit of Reward Processing Speaker: Minmin Luo，Director，National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS), Beijing Chair: Prof. Tianzi Jiang, Brainnetome Center, CASIA   Time: 2021.03.18, 14:00 - 15:00  Venue: The 1rd meeting room, 3rd floor, Intelligence Building

Abstract 

The brain reward system – a group of interconnected brain structures – participates in various aspects of reward processing and its malfunctions are associated with numerous psychiatric disorders. Studies have uncovered much information about the roles of dopamine neurons in the midbrain ventral tegmental area in reward-related behaviors, but the exact functions and circuit mechanisms of many other neural pathways in the brain reward system remain to be illuminated. Here, I will report our recent work about the mouse dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). I will first present our findings suggesting that DRN serotonin neurons encode “beneficialness” signals and may be important for reward belief, whereas DRN dopamine neurons are crucial for the expression of incentive memory. I will then show that the amgydala-projecting neurons in the ACC encode reward devaluation by the blunting of reward inhibition, which could be unblunted to alleviate depression-like behavior. These results thus highlight the need of dissecting the roles of reward circuits in the cell type-and projection-specific manner.