Organization and function of circuits that regulate motivated behaviors - Konstantinos Meletis

Organization and function of circuits that regulate motivated behaviors

Konstantinos Meletis, PhD

Associate Professor of Neuroscience
Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Host: Jun Ding

Abstract

I will present my group’s efforts to define the organization and function of basal ganglia circuits, specifically in terms of the molecular classification of neuron subtypes and how these reflect discrete functional categories. I will focus on the striatum and the circuits that control lateral habenula, where we have identified molecular codes for neuron subtypes and initiated the functional mapping of these circuits during reward, action selection, and aversion. I will discuss how our approach and findings can help establish a systematic investigation of the circuits that shape motivated behaviors and ultimately make predictions about circuit imbalance in mental disorders. 

Curriculum Vitae

Related paper

[1] Fürth D, Vaissière T, Tzortzi O, Xuan Y, Märtin A, Lazaridis I, Spigolon G, Fisone G, Tomer R, Deisseroth K, Carlén M, Miller CA, Rumbaugh G, Meletis K. An interactive framework for whole-brain maps at cellular resolution. Nature Neuroscience. 2018 Jan;21(1):139-149. DOI: 10.1038/s41593-017-0027-7

[2] Pollak Dorocic I, Fürth D, Xuan Y, Johansson Y, Pozzi L, Silberberg G, Carlén M, Meletis K. A whole-brain atlas of inputs to serotonergic neurons of the dorsal and median raphe nuclei. Neuron. 2014 Aug 6;83(3):663-78. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2014.07.002.