Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: María Paula Ospital | email: ospitalpaula@gmail.com
María Paula Ospital 1°, Tomás Sachella 2°, Joaquín Piriz 1°
1° Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias (IFIBYNE) (UBA-CONICET)
2° Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia “Profesor Eduardo De Robertis” (IBCN), Facultad de Medicina, UBA, CONICET
To survive in a dynamic environment, animals must be able to avoid dangerous situations that put their survival at risk. A key aspect of this process is to form aversive memories that allow information about the danger of stimuli encountered in the past to be retained and evoked. The cerebral nucleus of the Lateral Habenula (LHb) is a small and epithalamic brain region responsible for indicating negative consequences of actions and it is related to pathological states, such as depressive disorders or addictions. Recently, our group has characterized the role of the LHb in the formation of the aversive memory of the Pavlovian Fear Conditioning (FC). The objective of this project is to understand in greater depth how LHb fulfills this function by identifying the underlying neural circuits. For this purpose, we selectively perform pharmacological inhibition or optogenetic activation in the neurons of LHb-centered circuits, along the different stages of the FC protocol.