Puja Parekh
University of Texas at Dallas, TX·Neuroscience·Early-career
Deciding whether a reward is worth the effort is basic to survival, and to everyday life. In depression and schizophrenia, this "effort valuation" often breaks down: expected effort seems to outweigh the value of a reward.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Psychology
- Topics
anterior cingulate cortex
effort valuation
effort-based decision making
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2028
What they work on
- Determine how two anterior cingulate cortex neuron groups, those projecting to the nucleus accumbens and those projecting to the insula, encode reward- and effort-predicting cues, using in vivo two-photon calcium imaging during an effort valuation task.
- Test the causal role of corticostriatal and corticoinsular ACC circuits in effortful reward seeking by turning their activity up or down with optogenetics, light-based control of neurons.
- Determine how chronic psychosocial stress, a risk factor for depression, alters anticipatory and consummatory reward seeking under low and high effort, and the activity of these ACC circuits.
- Identify molecular pathways that differ between stress-susceptible and stress-resilient animals using single-cell RNA sequencing of corticostriatal and corticoinsular neurons.
More about the research
Chronic stress is a risk factor for depression, yet many people who face stress stay resilient. This project asks how specific brain circuits weigh effort against reward, and how stress disrupts them.
Why it matters
Losing motivation to pursue rewards is a disabling feature of depression and schizophrenia. By pinpointing which brain circuits weigh effort against reward, and finding molecular differences between stress-susceptible and resilient animals, this work could point to new therapeutic targets for disorders of motivation.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Scott Wilke
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Neuroscience
Record how anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) neurons and ACC-to-nucleus accumbens projection neurons represent effort-related costs and benefits during choices, using miniature head-mounted microscopes in freely behaving animals.
Jing Wang
New York University, NY·Neuroscience
Map how pain signals change the flow of information among the somatosensory, anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex in rats, and test whether real-time, light-based disruption of S1 changes pain behavior.
James M Otis
Medical University of South Carolina, SC·Neuroscience
Track single posterior paraventricular thalamus neurons that project to the nucleus accumbens across heroin self-administration, extinction, and reinstatement in mice, using two-photon calcium imaging.
The school
University of Texas at Dallas: 16 labs on PI Pages, $182M a year on research, 239 research doctorates a year.
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