Area:
Amygdala, Reinforcement Learning, Decision Making, Neurophysiology, Neuropsychopharmacology, Psychophysiology
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High-probability grants
According to our matching algorithm, Vincent D. Costa is the likely recipient of the following grants.
Years |
Recipients |
Code |
Title / Keywords |
Matching score |
2008 — 2010 |
Costa, Vincent D |
F31Activity Code Description: To provide predoctoral individuals with supervised research training in specified health and health-related areas leading toward the research degree (e.g., Ph.D.). |
Cognitive Regulation and Reversal of Fear: Physiological and Neural Mechanisms
[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Anticipatory fear in response to threatening cues readily prompts defensive activation in preparation for responding to an impending aversive event. A hallmark of pathological anxiety, especially fearful disorders, is excessive and persistent emotional responding in anticipation of feared stimuli. The intense fear and anxiety associated with the anticipation of a phobic event often leads to avoidance behaviors that can interfere with daily life. This is especially the case regarding phobias involving fear of pain, where fearfulness often negatively impacts health through delays in preventive care. While considerable advances have been made in understanding the neurocircuitry involved in the acquisition and expression of fear, an important translational step is in determining the neural underpinnings of fear inhibition and perseverative responding. Recent studies using verbal instructions to associate a neutral stimulus with the potential of electric shock have found that this simple threat prompts physiological reactions consistent with defensive activation. Dubbed instructed fear, the plasticity of this form of fear learning has not yet been explored. The proposed research involves comparisons of functional brain activity and psychophysiological responses to visual cues that signal the possibility of electric shock ("threat") or not ("safety"). In an initial learning phase fear will be verbally instantiated through instructions that associate one property of a set of visual cues (e.g. color) with threat or safety. Over the course of the experiment a second set of instructions will shift the instructed fear contingency to a different perceptual dimension causing half of the cues to reverse their affective meaning. Measures of autonomic and somatic reactivity and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) will be used to assess physiological and neural indicators of fear plasticity, and to gauge the involvement of orbitofrontal cortex in signaling reversals of conditioned fear. Additional hypotheses address whether increases in dental fear impair or enhance fearful responses during reversal learning. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]
|
0.948 |
2021 |
Costa, Vincent D |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Neurocomputational Mechanisms of Explore-Exploit Decision Making in Prefrontal and Motivational Neural Circuits @ Oregon Health & Science University
Project Summary The explore-exploit dilemma refers to the challenge of deciding when to forego choices with known consequences to explore new opportunities and learn more about them. Managing this trade-off is a fundamental component of behavioral flexibility. Excessive exploration or exploitation impedes learning and results in poor choices leading to undesired outcomes. Explore-exploit decision making is understudied in psychiatry despite its ecological validity and relevance in understanding disorders characterized by inflexible behaviors. One reason for this is we have not identified if the brain encodes information relevant for managing explore-exploit tradeoffs differently when exploration is motivated by either appetitive or aversive consequences. Another reason is that while there is evidence in humans that frontopolar cortex?the most anterior part of prefrontal cortex which is unique to primates?implements decisions to explore new opportunities, the neural mechanisms underlying changes in frontopolar activity that prompt exploration are unclear. Neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex, basolateral amygdala, and nucleus accumbens encode value signals that inform explore-exploit decisions. This suggests a more dynamic interplay between frontopolar cortex and motivational brain regions during explore- exploit decision making than is currently hypothesized. This proposal tests the hypothesis that frontopolar cortex implements decisions to explore, but is reliant on appetitive and aversive value signals computed in motivational neural circuits to balance exploration and exploitation. We predict that bottom-up feedback to frontopolar cortex from brain regions classically associated with signaling reward value is critical for balancing exploration and exploitation. In Aim 1 we will test if monkeys explore more often when choices in a multi-arm bandit task are associated with gains or losses, and use computational modeling of choices to define valence dependent differences in their willingness to explore. In Aim 2 we will simultaneously record neural activity in frontopolar and orbitofrontal cortex, basolateral amygdala, and nucleus accumbens to determine if bottom-up information flow from motivational brain regions to frontopolar cortex predicts decisions to explore or exploit, and if exploratory choices are encoded differently when exploration is motivated by gains versus losses. In Aim 3 will use pathway-specific chemogenetics to excite or inhibit basolateral amygdala neurons that project to the nucleus accumbens, while recording neural activity in the nucleus accumbens and frontopolar cortex. We will to test the prediction that excitation of this pathway increases exploitation due to heightened encoding of exploitative signals in nucleus accumbens and decreased encoding of exploration signals in frontopolar cortex. Upon completion of these aims, we will understand how imbalances in explore-exploit decision making emerge in different psychiatric disorders based on the integrity of prefrontal cortex and motivational circuits.
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1 |