Contemporary learning theorist hypothesized that both prediction error (PE) and stimulus salience are important for associative learning.  The role of PE in learning has been well documented thanks to the identification of PE coding in dopamine neurons.  However, the contribution of stimulus salience to learning has not been directly tested. In this talk, Dr. Chen will present new data supporting a critical role of neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) in gating the associative learning by providing a dynamic representation of stimulus salience. Furthermore, he will discuss how PVT can orchestrate the formation and maintenance of drug-associative memory via its connection to different downstream targets.

http://keckmedia.usc.edu/mediasite/catalog/catalogs/zniseminars.aspx