Grant: CIHR Fellowship

In nature, animals need to be able to appropriately respond to their environment in order to survive. As such, they maintain a fine balance between approach behavior, in response to food predicting cues, and avoidance behavior, in response to threat. In humans, inappropriate approach-avoidance behavior is a key marker of psychiatric illnesses such as depression and anxiety. The prefrontal cortex is a key region implicated in depression with widespread changes being observed in depressed patients and in animals exhibiting depression relevant behavior. Furthermore, this region is involved in reducing motivated behavior (food seeking) under threat. However, little is known about how threat is encoded in specific populations of cells, especially in females, which remain an understudied population. With this project we will define how threat is encoded in the PFC in a way that influences motivated behavior. Using cutting edge techniques that allow for the visualization and tagging of individual neurons in a population, we will define how activity and the genetic make-up of cells in the PFC are modulated by threat and subsequently drive avoidance behavior in both male and female mice. This project will help us understand how circuits are modified by threat, giving us insight into how stress and negative experiences can change the brain to drive the dysregulations in motivated behavior seen in depression.