Our lab investigates the neural computations that enable animals to adapt their decision-making and behavior in dynamic environments, particularly those requiring trade-offs between physical effort and expected reward. Grounded in systems and behavioral neuroscience, we focus on how neural circuits in the prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia, and hippocampus encode value, integrate past experiences, and regulate effortful decision-making. We combine pathway-specific neural manipulations (e.g., optogenetics, chemogenetics), in vivo electrophysiology, and custom-designed rodent behavioral tasks to dissect how memory systems interact with value-encoding circuits to guide behavior.

Our behavioral paradigms follow two complementary approaches: operant conditioning and spatial navigation. Using automated operant conditioning chambers and tasks like effort-discounting, 2-arm bandit, and Go/No-Go, we precisely manipulate reward and effort variables to quantify animals’ sensitivity to subtle changes in cost-benefit landscapes. These tasks form the basis for our collaboration with the University of Puerto Rico, Bayamón, Department of Electronics, to develop an automated, scalable training platform for high-throughput behavioral phenotyping. In parallel, we use ethologically inspired navigation tasks that trade experimental control for intuitive engagement of rodents. In one such assay, inspired by greyhound racing, rats sprint down a 6-foot corridor to earn velocity-dependent rewards while climbing variable-incline ramps that modulate effort cost. The task allows rats to self-regulate effort investment across trials based on internal motivation and external effort demands. By embedding decisions about effortful action within this naturalistic context, we can probe how prefrontal, basal ganglia, and hippocampal circuits contribute to action initiation and invigoration. This work has implications for understanding motivational impairments in psychiatric conditions such as depression and schizophrenia.

Scientific Collaborators

Dr. Juan González-Sánchez

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jagses/?originalSubdomain=pr

 

Dr. Pedro A. Feliciano-Ramos

https://cbmm.mit.edu/about/people/feliciano-ramos