Biology subjects

Lapish, C. C.

Publications and source records attributed to Lapish, C. C..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

Encoding of the Intent to Drink Alcohol by the Prefrontal Cortex is blunted in Rats with a Family History of Excessive Drinking

The prefrontal cortex plays a central role in guiding decision-making, and its function is altered by alcohol use and an individuals innate risk for excessive alcohol drinking. The primary goal of this work was to determine how neural activity in the prefrontal cortex guides the decision to drink. Towards this goal, the within-session changes in neural activity were measured from medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of rats performing a drinking procedure that allowed them to consume or abstain from alcohol in a self-paced manner. Recordings were obtained from rats that either lacked or expressed an innate risk for excessive alcohol intake - Wistar or Alcohol Preferring P rats, respectively. Wistar rats exhibited patterns of neural activity consistent with the intention to drink or abstain from drinking, whereas these patterns were blunted or absent in P rats. Collectively, these data indicate that neural activity patterns in mPFC associated with the intention to drink alcohol are influenced by innate risk for excessive alcohol drinking. This observation may indicate a lack of control over the decision to drink by this otherwise well-validated supervisory brain region.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

The rat medial prefrontal cortex exhibits flexible neural activity states during the performance of an odor span task

Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) activity is fundamental for working memory (WM), attention, and behavioral inhibition; however, a comprehensive understanding of the neural computations underlying these processes is still forthcoming. Towards this goal, neural recordings were obtained from the mPFC of awake, behaving rats performing an odor span task of WM capacity. Neural populations were observed to encode distinct task epochs and the transitions between epochs were accompanied by abrupt shifts in neural activity patterns. Putative pyramidal neuron activity increased significantly earlier in the delay for sessions where rats achieved higher spans. Furthermore, increased putative interneuron activity was only observed at the termination of the delay thus indicating that local processing in inhibitory networks was a unique feature to initiate foraging. During foraging, changes in neural activity patterns associated with the approach to a novel odor, but not familiar odors, were robust. Collectively, these data suggest that distinct mPFC activity states underlie the delay, foraging, and reward epochs of the odor span task. Transitions between these states enable successful performance in dynamic environments placing strong demands on the substrates of working memory.

neuroscience↗