Investigating the interaction of motivational systems

National Institute Of Diabetes And Digestive And Kidney Diseases

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

Motivational systems are tightly tuned in nature, however laboratory settings tend to focus attention toward one aspect of behavior for simplicity purposes. For example, appetite regulation is an extremely vital motivational system and dissecting out the neural circuits regulating this complex process is imperative in our fight against obesity and feeding-associated diseases. This reductionism has led to a number of key findings identifying the physiological sufficiency and necessity of neurons underlying appetite control. However, this oversimplification often ignores the complexity of a behaving animal in its natural habitat where it must meet several needs on a moment-to-moment basis. Here, we are proposing to study how hunger and satiety signals are associated with other motivational processes such as threat detection, mating drive, temperature regulation, parenting, defensive behavior, and thirst. We have and will continue to design novel behavioral paradigms to study how strengthening hunger signals are impacted by external contexts in the environment including visual, auditory and/or olfactory cues that innately drive a defined behavior, such as escape from a predatory threat. Studies such as these will allow us to unravel circuit mechanisms integrating motivational systems leading to a more comprehensive understanding of decision making.