How does the brain classify stimuli as positive or negative?

Ana Joao Rodrigues

  • PROJECT LEADER

    Ana Joao Rodrigues

  • HOST ORGANIZATION, COUNTRY

    Universidad del Miño, Portugal

  • DESCRIPTION

    The brain of a mammal is capable of filtering information from the outside world and classifying it by means of positive and negative stimuli. These affect its behaviour, activating processes of reward or aversion.

    Some of the neurons responsible for this classification reside in the nucleus accumbens, a region of the brain specialised in decoding stimuli as positive or negative. However, neuroscientists have no knowledge how this is done.

    This project seeks to understand how the filter of information from the brain assigns valences to external stimulate and associates them to certain results which mark the behaviour of the mammal. In the long term, this knowledge may inspire new therapies for addictions or depression.

  • PROJECT TITLE

    Encoding reward and aversion in the mammalian brain: the overlooked role of endogenous opioids (RewAve)

  • BUDGET

    499.788 €