The project investigates how the brain links drug-related experiences to contextual memories and how such memories later influence behaviour. A central focus is on understanding how brain systems involved in memory, spatial representation, and motivation interact during the formation and expression of drug-associated memories.
During the reporting period, the main activities focused on establishing and applying behavioural and neurophysiological paradigms in mice that make it possible to study these questions in a controlled way. This included the development of experimental settings in which contextual information or specific environmental features can be associated with drug-related or dopamine-related signals, as well as the collection of large-scale neuronal recordings from several brain regions involved in memory and motivation.
A major achievement has been the successful generation of extensive datasets from key brain regions relevant to the project. These datasets provide the basis for analysing how contextual and motivational information is represented in the brain and how these representations are altered by dopamine-related manipulations and drug exposure. The project has also established a new behavioural framework to compare natural reward-related behaviour with drug-related behaviour more directly. This is important because natural rewards are normally limited by satiety, whereas addictive drugs can lead to persistent seeking behaviour without the same physiological constraints.
The work has already revealed that neural systems involved in spatial and contextual representation are more flexible and sensitive to motivational state than previously assumed. In particular, the findings indicate that dopamine-related signals can alter the precision of neural codes linked to orientation and contextual processing. These results open new perspectives on how memory-related brain circuits contribute not only to navigation and contextual representation, but also to drug-related learning and relapse-like behaviour.
Overall, the work performed during the reporting period has established the core experimental platforms of the project, generated substantial datasets across multiple brain systems, and provided important first insights into how drug-related and reward-related experiences shape neural representations relevant to relapse.
