Carlos A. Paladini PhD
Associate Professor, University of Texas at San Antonio UTSA Neurosciences Institute, Department of Biology

The dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra pars compacta, located within the ventral mesencephalon, encode perhaps one of the most important signals for reinforcement learning in the brain: reward prediction error.  This signal is encoded by the firing pattern of dopaminergic neurons, which controls the release of dopamine at target regions.  Specifically, transient, impulse-dependent release of dopamine, driven by bursts of action potentials, is critical for natural processing in the brain. 

Disruptions of dopamine function result in many of the symptoms of a wide range of psychiatric diseases, drug addiction, and in the extreme case of the degeneration of these cells, to Parkinson's Disease, including many of its cognitive aspects.  Identification of the mechanism responsible for bursts is a key step in understanding the mechanism of reinforcement learning, but has so far proven elusive. 

This is largely due to the difficulty in accurately duplicating bursts under controlled experimental conditions such as those attainable during in vitro experiments.  Our lab has developed methods to induce bursts in vitro by manipulating identified afferents and astrocytes.

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