Department of Neuroscience
Mentor: Nicola Grissom, Ph.D., Department of Psychology and Benjamin Saunders, Ph.D., Department of Neuroscience
Project: Regulating explore-exploit balance through optogenetic modulation of functionally distinct dopamine circuits
Micaela's research focuses on how dopamine acts across distributed striatal circuits to regulate the balance between exploration and exploitation, a core component of adaptive decision making that is often dysregulated in mental health conditions. Striatal dopamine signaling regulates cognitive processes that are central for regulating explore-exploit balance, and dopaminergic dysfunction commonly underlies neuropsychiatric illness. While dopamine circuits represent a major therapeutic target, variability in treatment response highlights critical gaps in our mechanistic understanding of how dopamine shapes adaptive decision making. Dopamine is known to exhibit spatial, temporal, and functional heterogeneity across striatal subregions, suggesting that distinct striatal circuits may differentially mediate explore-exploit behavior. In this project, Micaela aims to parse the contributions of dopamine signaling in the nucleus accumbens and dorsomedial striatum using optogenetic manipulations in mice during a dynamic decision making task. Additionally, she will integrate advanced computational approaches to determine how individual differences in decision making strategies influence sensitivity to neuromodulation. Together, these studies will define how distinct striatal dopamine circuits regulate explore-exploit balance and identify individual factors that mediate responsiveness to circuit perturbation, providing a mechanistic basis for the development of targeted, more effective treatments to improve overall mental health outcomes.
