Mapping the neural basis of motivated behavior
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Understanding what in the brain establishes specific motivational states, and how these states cause animals to pursue particular goal-directed behaviors, are central goals of behavioral neuroscience. Fully determining the mechanisms underlying these processes will require a comprehensive description of how the brain operates at different levels spanning multiple spatial and temporal scales, from the expression of individual genes within single cells to the coordinated activity of brain-wide networks of neurons. As a step towards this ultimate goal, this dissertation proposes several new approaches to map and understand the structural, functional, and molecular properties of neural circuits. These approaches are applied to study the circuits underlying motivated behavior, with an emphasis of thirst motivation. This work is divided into several parts. (1) I de-scribe the application of a method for labeling neural circuits defined by activity (TRAP) in combination with whole-brain clearing and imaging technology to map the location of neurons activated by a particular experience throughout the brain, and study their structural and molecular properties. (2) Extending the idea of brain-wide imaging to study dynamics, I introduce two new approaches to perform large-scale in vivo imaging of neural activity across the surface of the mouse brain, to study cell-type-specific cortical dynamics involved in production of a simple thirst-motivated choice behavior. (3) I dis-cuss an improved approach to TRAP, and apply this technique to measure and manipulate a crucial node in the neural circuit underlying the sensation of thirst to reveal how activity in this circuit induced by water deprivation produces an aversive drive that is diminished through water consumption. (4) I develop a new approach to spatially map the expression of up to 1,000 genes simultaneously in three dimensions within single cells in a tissue section, and show that this approach is compatible with activity measurement using activity regulated genes as a post hoc reporter of neural activity. (5) Finally, I develop an approach using large-scale electrophysiology to study spatially-localized activity dynamics from cells distributed throughout the entire mouse brain. I apply this technique to study brain-wide neural dynamics during thirst motivated choice behavior, revealing how thirst motivational state is represented throughout the brain and how this state gates the flow of information from sensory to motor regions.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2019; ©2019 |
| Publication date | 2019; 2019 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Allen, William Edward |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Deisseroth, Karl |
| Degree supervisor | Luo, Liqun, 1966- |
| Thesis advisor | Deisseroth, Karl |
| Thesis advisor | Luo, Liqun, 1966- |
| Thesis advisor | Hestrin, Shaul |
| Thesis advisor | Newsome, William T |
| Thesis advisor | Shenoy, Krishna V. (Krishna Vaughn) |
| Degree committee member | Hestrin, Shaul |
| Degree committee member | Newsome, William T |
| Degree committee member | Shenoy, Krishna V. (Krishna Vaughn) |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Neurosciences Program. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | William Edward Allen. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Neurosciences Program. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2019 by William Edward Allen
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