Venue: Centre Broca
Romain Ligneul
Center for Neuroscience Research of Lyon, France
Title
Novelty, controllability or uncertainty: emerging properties of serotonergic neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus
Abstract
Recent studies have established that serotonin (5-HT) neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) are strongly modulated by a variety of affective and cognitive factors, thereby challenging monolithic theories of 5-HT function. In this study, I will first show that DRN 5-HT neurons are strongly modulated by novelty and that their activity modulate specific novelty-related behaviors in mice. Then, I will describe results from a new cross-species paradigm suggesting that 5-HT neurons encode changes in environmental controllability, contribute to controllability estimation and participate in the adjustement of downstream foraging strategies in mice and humans. To conclude, I will discuss the theoretical implications and the clinical relevance of these findings, with a particular emphasis on anxiety and depression.
Key publications
Serotonin
R Ligneul, ZF Mainen
Current Biology 33 (23), R1216-R1221
Stress-sensitive inference of task controllability
R Ligneul, ZF Mainen, V Ly, R Cools
Nature Human Behaviour 6 (6), 812-822
Developmental shifts in computations used to detect environmental controllability
HA Raab, C Foord, R Ligneul*, CA Hartley*
PLoS computational biology 18 (6), e1010120