What Affects How We Learn?

PROJECTS

• Prediction error learning

  • This project investigates the role of noradrenaline in updating learned behaviours. Through the use of optogenetics, fibre photometry, and behavioural analyses, we are investigating the contribution of noradrenergic locus coeruleus neurons on prediction error learning and the neural substrates and mechanisms that mediate it. Although dopamine is traditionally associated with learning, noradrenaline may play an equally important role in certain aspects of learning. By investigating noradrenaline-dependent learning, we hope to identify separate mechanisms and circuits that could facilitate different types of learning outside of the dopaminergic pathways which can provide insight to treating various learning disabilities.

• Diet and learning

  • We are investigating the neurobiological mechanisms of how obesogenic diet can impair goal-directed control. Rats who are pre-fed a high fat, high sugar diet of sweetened condensed milk show a deficit in goal-directed responding when later trained to lever-press for a food reinforcer. This implies that obesogenic diet can create long-lasting neural changes that promote habitual responding for other reinforcers. The dorsomedial striatum is a brain region that has been established as a center for goal-directed control while the dorsolateral striatum has been implicated in habitual responding. We are investigating a potential role of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRII) within these regions as a mechanism for how diet can alter goal-directed control. Even more broadly, we are utilizing DREADDs to examine how action and habit circuits interact to control behaviour across training.