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SUMMARY:The dopamine circuit as a reward-taxis navigation system - Omer Ka
 rin\, Imperial College London
DTSTART:20221011T120000Z
DTEND:20221011T130000Z
UID:TALK183056@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Camille Scalliet
DESCRIPTION:Studying the brain circuits that control behavior is challengi
 ng\, since in addition to their structural complexity there are continuous
  feedback interactions between actions and sensed inputs from the environm
 ent. It is therefore important to identify mathematical principles that ca
 n be used to develop testable hypotheses. In this study\, we use ideas and
  concepts from systems biology to study the dopamine system\, which contro
 ls learning\, motivation\, and movement. Using data from neuronal recordin
 gs in behavioral experiments\, we developed a mathematical model for dopam
 ine responses and the effect of dopamine on movement. We show that the dop
 amine system shares core functional analogies with bacterial chemotaxis. J
 ust as chemotaxis robustly climbs chemical attractant gradients\, the dopa
 mine circuit performs ‘reward-taxis’ where the attractant is the expec
 ted value of reward. The reward-taxis mechanism provides a simple explanat
 ion for scale-invariant dopaminergic responses and for matching in free op
 erant settings\, and makes testable quantitative predictions. We propose t
 hat reward-taxis is a simple and robust navigation strategy that complemen
 ts other\, more goal-directed navigation mechanisms.
LOCATION:Center for Mathematical Sciences\, Lecture room MR4
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