Publications related to Overexpression of parkin in the rat nigrostriatal dopamine system protects against methamphetamine neurotoxicity

Unveiling the complexity of learning and decision-making

Reinforcement learning (RL) is crucial for learning to adapt to new environments. In RL, the prediction error is an important component that compares the expected and actual rewards. Dopamine plays a critical role in encoding these prediction errors. In my ...

EPFL2024

Distinct ultrastructural phenotypes of glial and neuronal alpha-synuclein inclusions in multiple system atrophy

Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg, Amanda Jennifer Lewis, Marta Di Fabrizio, Domenic Burger, Carolin Böing

Multiple System Atrophy is characterized pathologically by the accumulation of alpha-synuclein (aSyn) into glial cytoplasmic inclusions (GCIs). The mechanism underlying the formation of GCIs is not well understood. In this study, correlative light and elec ...

2024

Striatal Dopamine Signals and Reward Learning

Carl Petersen, Sylvain Crochet, Parviz Ghaderi, Mauro Pulin, Anthony Pierre Robert Renard, Christos Sourmpis, Pol Bech Vilaseca, Meriam Malekzadeh, Robin François Virginien Dard, Yanqi Liu

We are constantly bombarded by sensory information and constantly making decisions on how to act. In order to optimally adapt behavior, we must judge which sequences of sensory inputs and actions lead to successful outcomes in specific circumstances. Neuro ...

Oxford Univ Press2023

GABAergic-like dopamine synapses in the brain

Maria Reva

Dopamine synapses play a crucial role in volitional movement and reward-related behaviors, while dysfunction of dopamine synapses causes various psychiatric and neurological disorders. Despite this significance, the true biological nature of dopamine synap ...

2023

Mitofusin-2 in nucleus accumbens D2-MSNs regulates social dominance and neuronal function

Bernard Schneider, Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Jocelin Grosse, Olivia Zanoletti, Elias Georges Gebara, Marie-Isabelle Guillot de Suduiraut, Simone Astori, Alessandro Chioino, Sriparna Ghosal, Eva Ramos Fernandez

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is a brain hub regulating motivated behaviors, including social competitiveness. Mitochondrial function in the NAc links anxiety with social competitiveness, and the mitochondrial fusion protein mitofusin 2 (Mfn2) in NAc neurons ...

2023

Dopamine Dynamics in Reward-based Learning

Jun Huang

Dopamine signals are thought to be important for reward-based learning and appear to play important roles in regulating synaptic plasticity in the nucleus accumbens and the striatum. However, the precise neuronal circuit mechanisms underlying the learning ...

EPFL2022

Dopamine and Methamphetamine Differentially Affect Electron Transport Chain Complexes and Parkin in Rat Striatum: New Insight into Methamphetamine Neurotoxicity

Bernard Schneider, Akhil Sharma

Methamphetamine (METH) is a highly abused psychostimulant that is neurotoxic to dopaminergic (DAergic) nerve terminals in the striatum and increases the risk of developing Parkinson's disease (PD). In vivo, METH-mediated DA release, followed by DA-mediated ...

MDPI2022

Opposite effects of stress on effortful motivation in high and low anxiety are mediated by CRHR1 in the VTA

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Jocelin Grosse, Olivia Zanoletti, Simone Astori, Marie-Isabelle Guillot de Suduiraut, Ioannis Zalachoras, Mandy Meijer

Individuals frequently differ in their behavioral and cognitive responses to stress. However, whether motivation is differently affected by acute stress in different individuals remains to be established. By exploiting natural variation in trait anxiety in ...

2022

Glutathione in the nucleus accumbens regulates motivation to exert reward-incentivized effort

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Lijing Xin, Ioannis Zalachoras, Olivia Zanoletti, Simone Astori, João Pedro de Matos Rodrigues, Fiona Hollis, Pascal Steiner, Alina Veronika Irene Strasser, Eva Ramos Fernandez

Emerging evidence is implicating mitochondrial function and metabolism in the nucleus accumbens in motivated performance. However, the brain is vulnerable to excessive oxidative insults resulting from neurometabolic processes, and whether antioxidant level ...

2022

Cell Type-Specific Membrane Potential Changes in Dorsolateral Striatum Accompanying Reward-Based Sensorimotor Learning

Carl Petersen, Sylvain Crochet, Tanya C Sippy

The striatum integrates sensorimotor and motivational signals, likely playing a key role in reward-based learning of goal-directed behavior. However, cell type-specific mechanisms underlying reinforcement learning remain to be precisely determined. Here, w ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2021