collaboration project between UU and UMC Utrecht Brain Center

My research diverges into the following branches:

1. To determine the impact of risky social play on the development of cognitive control.

Machine learning methods for pose estimation will be applied to automatically classify various types of play behavior in rodents. Conditions varying in the degree of social play will be compared using multiple behavioral tasks testing for cognitive control. 

2. To determine the impact of risky social play experience on cognitive control under (repeated) stress later in life.

3. To compare the engagement of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in cognitive control in relation to different degrees of play experience and recurrent exposure to stress.

Multiple techniques will be used to assess neuronal population activity and excitability profiles of neurons in the mPFC-NAc pathway. In vivo fiber photometry, ex vivo electrophysiology, manipulation of mPFC circuitry using DREADDs.