Venue: Centre Broca
Defense in English
Anass El Azraoui
Team Humeau and Team Herry 
Thesis supervisor: Yann Humeau
Title
Prefrontal Neuronal Basis of Decision-Making under Opposed Affective States
(Bases Neuronales de la Prise de Décision dans des États Affectifs de Valence Opposée)
Abstract
The emotional impact of a stimulus or an environment shapes decision-making and drives adaptive behaviors. However, when emotional values are altered by mood disorders or diseases like pathological anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, this can lead to inappropriate or maladaptive behaviors. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is among the brain regions altered in such pathologies, with its ventral sub-division known to regulate emotions and its dorsal sub-division involved in decision-making and executive functions. These data point to the PFC as a key region for the modulation of goal-directed behaviors, however, a circuit-based understanding for how PFC encodes emotional value and integrates it into decision-making processes remains elusive. To address this question, we used Neuropixels recordings in PFC circuits while mice performed a virtual-reality based decision-making task in which they are trained to approach a visual stimulus rewarded in one context, but avoid the same stimulus when it is punished in a second context. The context thus determines the current emotional value of a primary visual stimulus, and decisions about the same stimulus are made accordingly. Our recordings indicate that different populations of PFC neurons are activated by different emotional contexts, and that the same behavioral choices, are driven by different PFC circuit dynamics as a function of the emotional context. These data suggest a dynamical and valence specific encoding of choice unfolded within prefrontal circuits.
Keywords: emotions, decision making, prefrontal cortex
Publications
Axo-axonic cells in neuropsychiatric disorders: a systematic review.
Vivien J*, El Azraoui A*, Lheraux C, Lanore F, Aouizerate B, Herry C, Humeau Y and Bienvenu TCM (2023) Front. Cell. Neurosci. 17:1212202. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2023.1212202
*: shared-first
Jury
- Thomas Boraud, IMN (President)
- Andreas Lüthi, FMI (Rapporteur)
- Daniel Salzman, Columbia University (Rapporteur)
- Shauna Parkes, INCIA (Examiner)
- Stéphanie Trouche, IGF (Examiner)
- Yann Humeau, FMI (Thesis supervisor)
- Cyril Herry, Magendie (Guest)
- Evan Harrell, IINS (Guest)