Project Grant R01MH137461

This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) provides $2,055,184 in funding to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to conduct research on the role of prefrontal dopamine circuits in threat avoidance learning.

The key objectives are to measure and manipulate prefrontal dopamine dynamics to understand their causal role in modifying neural activity patterns required for avoidance learning. The research will use innovative tools to determine the timing and causality of dopamine signaling, assess how dopamine modulates emergent neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, and investigate the specific contributions of D1 receptor-expressing versus D2 receptor-expressing neural populations during threat avoidance learning. The findings from this 5-year research project have the potential to inform the development of pharmacological, psychotherapeutic, and brain stimulation interventions for psychiatric disorders characterized by maladaptive avoidance behaviors.