Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The University of California, San Diego received a $415,664 Project Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242), awarded on March 15, 2026, with a completion date of December 31, 2030. This award supports a research project investigating the dissociable roles of distinct orbitostriatal circuits in value-based decision-making. The research employs advanced neuroscientific methodologies including fiber photometry, optogenetics, and computational modeling to identify the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying adaptive and maladaptive reward learning in translational behavioral tasks using rat models.

The project addresses a critical gap in understanding decision-making deficits common in psychiatric disorders resulting from disruptions in value estimation, action selection, or environmental inference. Specifically, the research examines how dynamic changes in ventromedial orbitofrontal cortex-medial striatum and lateral orbitofrontal cortex-central striatal circuits contribute to flexible reward learning and how alterations in circuit activity disrupt this process. Findings from this four-year research initiative are intended to inform therapeutic approaches to current treatment-resistant decision-making impairments associated with mental illness.