Midbrain

…despite the evolutionary relevance of midbrain and hindbrain areas. These areas are preserved across different

In natural speech, the harmonic pattern of a speaker’s fundamental frequency (f0) and its higher harmonics elicits a neural response at the fundamental frequency which can be captured by electroencephalography (EEG) or magnetoencephalography (MEG), termed speech-FFR. While EEG measurements have found a subcortically evoked early neural activity to this speech-FFR, MEG studies have recently emphasized involvement of cortical sources as well. Here, we focused on disentangling the sources of the neural response at the fundamental frequency of speech using EEG-based source localization. We theref

…symptoms, the specific alterations in midbrain dopamine neurons projecting to the striatum remain unclear. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to examine the structural and morphological properties of primary dopaminergic neuronal cell cultures isolated from Shank3-deficient transgenic mouse, known for exhibiting autism-like symptomatology. Additionally, we evaluated the expression of selected synaptic proteins in the brain areas relevant for social behavior in wild type (WT) and Shank3-defi

Astrocytes are essential for brain health. Indeed, they provide structural and metabolic support; regulate synaptic transmission; maintain glutamate homeostasis as well as produce neurotrophic molecules. In Parkinson’s disease (PD) these pathways became progressively dysfunctional thus switching to a neurotoxic phenotype. Scientific evidence suggests that neurotoxic glial cells might be responsible for neuroinflammation that plays a key role in the symptoms and development of PD. However, the mechanistic correlation among glial activation, neuroinflammatory response, dopaminergic neuronal loss

Dopaminergic reward prediction error neurons in the midbrain are the most prominent reward representation in the brain. To understand why these neurons represent rewards the way they do when stochastic rewards are encountered, we derive the optimal population of neurons to encode rewards drawn from a given distribution. To do so, we extend an existing framework for efficient coding to decouple the density of neurons from their slopes. We compare the optimally efficient population to measurements of reward prediction error neurons. We find three aspects of the optimized population confirmed: Fi

Inter-individual variability refers to differences in the expression of behaviors between members of a population. For instance, some individuals take greater risks, are more attracted to immediate gains or are more susceptible to drugs of abuse than others. To probe the neural bases of inter-individual variability we study reward seeking and decision-making in mice, and dissect the specific role of dopamine in the modulation of these behaviors. Using a spatial version of the multi-armed bandit task, in which mice are faced with consecutive binary choices, we could link modifications of mid

…innervate the entire forebrain and midbrain, modulating diverse physiology and behaviour. By using viral-genetic methods, we found that DR serotonin system contains parallel sub-systems that differ in input and output connectivity, physiological response properties, and behavioural functions. To gain a fundamental understanding of the molecular heterogeneity of DR