28/05/24 Seminar by Léon Tremblay

Tuesday 28th May 2024 at 13:30, at Henri Gastaut meeting room

Léon Tremblay (Institute of Cognitive Science Marc Jeannerod, Lyon) (invited by Christelle Baunez)

Appetitive versus aversive motivational processes: The role of the limbic Basal Ganglia pathways in normal and pathological contexts

Abstract: The basal ganglia are widely known to play a role in goal-directed behaviors in rewarding contexts found in impulse-control or addictive disorders. Recent imaging and psychiatric clinical studies have provided evidence that the basal ganglia, especially the limbic territory, also play a role in processing the aversive stimuli, avoidance and compulsive-related behaviors that characterize anxiety disorders. Excessive or inappropriate anticipation of these aversive events compared to anticipation of positive events could result in dysfunctions underlying behavioral manifestations associated with the anxiety states broadly observed in a wide variety of psychiatric illnesses. In this presentation, based on our neurophysiology studies in non-human primates, I will describe how the ventral striatum (VS) and ventral pallidum (VP), two parts of the limbic circuit of the basal ganglia that are key structures in motivation and decision-making processes, could also be involved in the selection of approach/avoidance behaviors in normal and pathological contexts. This limbic striatopallidal circuit could be involved not only in the impulsive-compulsive disorders present in many neuropsychiatric diseases, but also in their treatments, since they can be modulated by dopaminergic and serotonergic drugs such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and fluoxetine (Prozac), both of which can act on these limbic territories of the basal ganglia.