[BIC-announce] FW: Reminder: BIndra lecture - Prof. Peter Holland, Friday 21st Jan.

[Jennifer Chew, Ms.]

FOR YOUR INFORMATION.  PLEASE DISCARD IF THIS IS A DUPLICATE.  THANK YOU.  JENNIFER 
 

Jennifer Chew

McConnell Brain Imaging Centre

MNI - WB317

3801 University Street

Montreal, Qc  H3A 2B4

Telephone:  514-398-8554

Fax:  514-398-2975

 

 

________________________________

From: MNISTAFF - Montreal Neurological Institute Staff [mailto:MNISTAFF at LISTS.MCGILL.CA] On Behalf Of Enza Ferracane, Ms.
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2011 9:29 AM
To: MNISTAFF at LISTS.MCGILL.CA
Subject: Reminder: BIndra lecture - Prof. Peter Holland, Friday 21st Jan.
Importance: High



Friday 21st January, 2011, at 3:30pm, in MCMED 504.  

In line with Dalbir Bindra's scientific contributions to the field of motivation and goal directed behaviour, our speaker this year is Prof. Peter Holland who has made signficant contributions to our understanding of the neural systems of learning, motivation and attention.

As usual, there will be an informal morning seminar (10:30am-12:00pm, Room N7/14) in addition to the main afternoon lecture (3:30pm-5:00pm, MCMED 504).

The abstracts for the talks are below (see also: http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/misc/hebb/bindra.html)

Morning seminar

Representation of outcome expectancies in amygdala and sensory cortex.

As a result of associative learning, Pavlovian conditioned stimuli often activate representations of the unconditioned stimuli (USs) with which they were paired. These associatively-activated representations can serve many of the functions of the USs themselves, including the control of performance and the acquisition of new learning. Considerable evidence shows that such representations may include detailed sensory information about USs. Lesion studies indicate that a number of brain regions, including basolateral amygdala , medial prefrontal cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex are critical to the formation and use of such representations. We used a combination of lesion and multiple immediate-early gene expression procedures to examine neural representation of outcome expectancies in gustatory and orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum, and amygdala, after Pavlovian learning about flavored USs.  Our first set of studies indicated that Pavlovian cues alone can instigate brain events correlated with aspects of sensory and hedonic processing of their associated USs.  Subsequent studies indicated that sucrose-paired odors and sucrose itself activated similar neuronal ensembles in gustatory cortex, whereas odors paired with sucrose or maltodextrin activated relatively separate ensembles. The results of lesion studies indicated that cues' access to selective outcome representations in the gustatory cortex does not depend on amygdala input, whereas cortical input is critical to the formation of such representations in the amygdala, which in turn are critical for the guidance  of behavior according to the emotional significance of expected outcomes.

Afternoon Lecture

Modulation of appetitive and consummatory behavior by food-related cues

Associative learning processes play many important roles in the control of food consumption.  Although these processes can complement regulatory mechanisms in the control of eating by providing opportunities for the anticipation of upcoming needs, they may also contribute to inappropriate or pathological consumption patterns by overriding internal regulatory signals. In this seminar, I will first describe a neural systems analysis in a simple animal model of the control of feeding by Pavlovian conditioned stimuli (CSs). Food-sated rats increase their food consumption after presentation of CSs that were previously paired with food while the rats were food-deprived. This cue-potentiated feeding is independent of conditioned approach responses, and is often highly specific to the foods associated with those CSs. A series of studies that used neuroanatomical tract tracing, immediate early gene expression, and neurotoxic disconnection lesion techniques implicated circuitry that includes the basolateral amygdala, the lateral hypothalamus, and the medial prefrontal cortex in these examples of cue-modulated feeding.  These studies also showed dissociations between the ability of learned cues to modulate feeding and other phenomena often attributed to learned motivational processes, including cues' abilities to modulate instrumental food procurement behaviors, to serve as conditioned reinforcers, and to support cue-directed responding such as orienting and autoshaping. The data suggest that the modulation of food consumption by CSs is uniquely mediated by cortical and amygdalar neurons that directly target the lateral hypothalamus, and thus gain access to hypothalamic neuropeptide and other systems involved in the promotion and suppression of eating.

 

Cheers,

Yogita

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Yogita Chudasama Ph. D

Assistant Professor

Laboratory of Brain and Behaviour

Department of Psychology

McGill University

1205 Dr Penfield Avenue

Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1B1

Tel:  (514) 398-3419

Fax: (514) 398-4896

Email: yogita.chudasama at mcgill.ca

Web: http://chudasamalab.mcgill.ca

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