Neural Circuits of Motivated Behavior

Hunger and competing survival needs

How do individuals prioritize behaviors that ensure survival? Neural circuits that drive survival behaviors (e.g., food seeking) when animals face a single, specific need (e.g., hunger) are highly conserved and well-characterized. However, when animals face multiple concurrent needs behavior selection is a result of the integration and weighting of information related to the most pressing need.

To understand how the brain achieves this behavioral plasticity, our lab uses behavioral analysis, optogenetic and chemogenetic manipulation, and calcium imaging in mice. Currently, we are investigating how hunger-sensing Agouti-related peptide (AgRP) neurons in the hypothalamus drive food consumption despite environmental threat and how ensembles of cortical neurons allow for flexible behavior when hunger is in competition with other needs.

​​

Pregnancy and competing motivations​

How do pregnancy and post-partum care affect the behavior in dynamic environments? In this project conceived by Emma Morley and Claire Kelly, two recent graduates of the lab, we are asking both how female mice prioritize the competing needs of hunger, parental care, and threat avoidance and how pre-natal stress affects motivated behavior across juvenile development.

​

Initiation of motivated behaviors

Interfacing between sensory and motor systems, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is well-positioned to mediate the transition between passivity and action toward a goal. In this project, we are exploring how subcortical mPFC projections both initiate and sustain motivated behaviors.