Unconventional windows to plasticity in the basal ganglia circuitry: Implications for habit, compulsion and dystonia - Nicole Calakos

Stanford Neurosciences Institute Seminar Series Presents

Unconventional windows to plasticity in the basal ganglia circuitry: Implications for habit, compulsion and dystonia

Nicole Calakos, MD Ph.D

Associate Professor of Neurology, Duke University School of Medicine

Host: Jun Ding

Abstract

While synaptic plasticity is a major driving force in brain mechanisms for adaptive behavior, commonly used levels of analysis leave a number of significant gaps in understanding the relationship between plasticity and behavior. In an effort to bridge this gap, we recently employed 2PLSM optical imaging of somatic calcium transients in large cell-type defined populations of the striatum, not for in vivo imaging during behavior, but rather to examine how the effects of local striatal circuit plasticity integrate to influence firing of projection neurons. In this talk, I will discuss our experience with the utility of this level of analysis as we have used it to understand the neural mechanisms for adaptive learning in the formation of habits and the maladaptive state of compulsive behavior (O’hare, Neuron 2016; Ade, Biol Psych 2016).