Thursday, February 28, 2013

Julie Kauer (Brown University) discusses her work on plasticity and addiction, specifically her discovery of the potentiation of GABA  synapses (GABA-LTP) on dopamine neurons. The group discusses how acute drugs and stress produce a persistent block of GABA-LTP, and how this  phenomenon might be significant to behavior, addiction and its relevance  to the reward prediction error function of dopamine neurons.

Duration: 42 minutes

Discussants:(in alphabetical order)

Carlos Paladini (Assoc Prof, UTSA)

Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA)

Denard Simmons (PhD student, Paladini Lab UTSA)

Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA)

Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA)

acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.