Christian Bravo-Rivera
University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences, PR·Neuroscience
Everyday choices often pit a reward against a risk. Going after food, for example, can mean facing a threat.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Psychology
Physiology
- Topics
approach/avoidance conflict
decision-making
motivation
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Apr 2031
What they work on
- Characterize how nucleus accumbens neurons and astrocytes encode the learning and expression of approach/avoidance conflict, using calcium fiber photometry in mice performing the platform-mediated avoidance task.
- Block signaling in nucleus accumbens neurons and astrocytes with virus-delivered tools, and test whether this disrupts how mice learn to resolve reward–threat conflict.
- Silence nucleus accumbens neurons and astrocytes with optogenetics, which controls cells with light, to test their role in expressing learned approach/avoidance behavior.
- Measure ventral pallidum astrocyte activity during approach/avoidance conflict, using fiber photometry and immunolabeling in mice.
- Disrupt ventral pallidum astrocytes with optogenetic perturbation and hPMCA2w/b, an engineered pump that removes calcium from astrocytes, to probe their role in the platform-mediated avoidance task.
More about the research
Healthy brains weigh these costs and benefits. In anxiety, depression and addiction, this balance between approaching and avoiding breaks down. Researchers have mapped many brain circuits for seeking reward and for avoiding danger, but less is known about how these opposing circuits interact when both pull at once. These projects study that conflict in mice. They focus on two linked reward-related brain regions, the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and the ventral pallidum (VP). They also look at astrocytes, star-shaped support cells that regulate synapses, the connections between neurons. Both projects use the platform-mediated avoidance task. In this task, a mouse must choose between seeking a reward and stepping onto a safe platform to avoid a signaled threat.
Why it matters
Poor approach/avoidance decision-making is a hallmark of anxiety, major depression and addiction. Learning how nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum cells, including astrocytes, control this balance could help reveal the brain mechanisms behind these disorders. That knowledge could eventually point to new cell types or circuits for treatments to target.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jocelyn Richard
University of Minnesota, MN·Neuroscience
Test whether separate neurons in the ventral pallidum encode the incentive value of reward cues versus the expected value of outcomes, using in vivo single-unit electrophysiology to record individual neurons during cue presentations.
Stephan Lammel
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Neuroscience
Test whether neurotensin signaling in the pathway from the lateral nucleus accumbens to the VTA drives hedonic feeding in mice, using optogenetics, NTS receptor blockers and a new neurotensin sensor that measures release in vitro and in vivo.
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.
The school
University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences: 3 labs on PI Pages, $61M a year on research, 10 research doctorates a year.
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