Reema Rafifar Rose Hills
Reward Learning and Threat Prediction in Adolescent Wild-Derived Mice
Adolescence is a period of heightened exploration, risk-taking, and sensation-seeking, accompanied by substantial remodeling of the brain’s dopamine system. Dopamine is central to how we learn from experience and make decisions. The striatum is a key hub for this learning, but its dopamine signals are not uniform: the nucleus accumbens core is closely tied to reward, while the tail of the striatum responds to aversive events. How these distinct pathways mature during adolescence, and why their timing matters, remains poorly understood. To investigate, I study a wild-derived mouse species whose dispersal varies by season: pups born in spring leave home within 3 months, while those born in fall delay dispersal until the following season. This yields mice of the same age but on different developmental trajectories, providing a unique opportunity to examine how striatal dopamine maturation relates to adolescent behavioral transitions. Using fiber photometry to record dopamine activity in both regions, I will test if these groups show distinct dopaminergic patterns during reward learning and threat prediction, reflecting differences in developmental maturation tied to dispersal timing.
Message To Sponsor
Thank you for your generous support and for the opportunity to pursue my research! Being able to contribute to our understanding of reinforcement learning and adolescent brain development is something I’m very grateful to be able to pursue.