Lab News

The Mizumori lab has serveral recent articles published

Ventral tegmental area and substantia nigra neural correlates of spatial learning (2011). Adria K Martig and Sheri JY Mizumori. Learning and Memory, 18; 260-272.

Independent neural coding of reward and movement by pendunculopontine tegmental nucleus neurons in freely navigating rats. Alix BW Norton, Yong Sang Jo, Emily W Clark, Cortney A Taylor, and Sheri JY Mizumori. Eur J Neuroscience; Early View; 1-12.

Activation of dopamine neurons is critical for aversion conditioning and prevention of generalized anxiety. Larry S Zweifel, Jonathan P Fadok, Emmanuela Argilli, Micheal G Garelick, Graham L Jones, Tavis MK Dickson, James M Allen, Sheri JY Mizumori, Antonello Bonci and Richard D Palmiter. Nature Neuroscience, 14(5); 620-628.

Adaptive decisions during goal-directed navigation depend on a hierarchy of systems and cellular level interactions in the brain. This video demonstrates on a basic level, the relative involvement of the hippocampus, the dopamine system, and the ventral and dorsal (medial and lateral) striatum during a simple food search task on a laboratory maze. Particular attention is paid to the relative contributions of these brain areas while the rat initially learns about the environment, makes choices in a familiar environment, how decisions are adjusted when familiar conditions change.

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Undergraduate research students in the Mizumori lab will be presenting their work during the 2011 UW Undergraduate Research Festival

1. Jane Lee; The medial prefrontal cortex modulates anticipatory activity of dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area
2. Tom Coleman; The role of phasic dopamine in the modulation of hippocampal place cell stability
3. Josh Larkin; A Novel Maze-Based Task to Assess Decision Making in Rats

Jane Lee will present her project titled “The Medial Prefrontal Cortex Modulates Anticipatory Activity of Dopaminergic Neurons in the Ventral Tegmental Area” at the 20th Annual UCLA Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference on May 6, 2011.

National Institute of Mental Health Grant

Topic: Dopamine Regulation During Context Processing

PI: Dr. Sheri Mizumori

Hippocampal Place Fields
Relevance to Learning and Memory
Edited by Sheri J.Y. Mizumori

Oxford University Press
ISBN13: 9780195323245 ISBN10: 0195323246
Hardback, 432 pages
Feb 2008

Reviews:

"Someone peering in from another scientific field might appreciate the attraction to place cells but also might ask why a mere firing correlate is the subject of an entire book. The answers are found throughout the book. Put simply, place cells are now an important reference point from which to address a host of issues in neuroscience...The book's organization reflects Sheri Mizumori's deep understanding of the fact that place-cell research is much less a specialization than a field that adeptly speaks to scientific questions ranging from molecular biology to cognition. Ranging from historical background to the current leading discoveries and theories concerning place cells, this book is well-situated to be a resource for graduate- level students of the field as well as for nonspecialists."--Nature Neuroscience   (Read Full Review by Doug Nitz >>)

"This book combines theory and research quite nicely. The editor and contributors are the movers and the shakers in the field and they have created a book which stands alone, given its depth and its breadth."--Doody's

Description:

Data from neuropsychological and animal research suggest that the hippocampus plays a pivotal role in two relatively different areas: active navigation, as well as episodic learning and memory. Recent studies have attempted to bridge these disparate accounts of hippocampal function by emphasizing the role that hippocampal place cells may play in processing the spatial contextual information that defines situations in which learned behaviors occur. A number of established laboratories are currently offering complementary interpretations of place fields, and this book will present the first common platform for them. Bringing together research from behavioral, genetic, physiological, computational, and neural-systems perspectives will provide a thorough understanding of the extent to which studying place-field properties has informed our understanding of the neural mechanisms of hippocampus-dependent memory. Hippocampal Place Fields: Relevance to Learning and Memory will serve as a valuable reference for everyone interested in hippocampal function.

The purpose of the Royalty Research Fund (RRF) at the University of Washington is to advance new directions in research.

Dr. Sheri Mizumori (co-PI) awarded RRF for Amygdala Neural Activity in Taste Aversion Learning.

National Institute of Mental Health Grant

Topic: Dopamine Effects on Striatal and Hippocampal Plasticity

PI: Dr. Sheri Mizumori

Yong Sang Jo, graduate student at the NSDLM Lab, wins the University of Washington Psychology Department Top Scholar Award, 2010.