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Scholarly Works (2 results)

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  • Peer Reviewed
UC San Diego Previously Published Works (2021)
The observation of place cells has suggested that the hippocampus plays a special role in encoding spatial information. However, place cell responses are modulated by several nonspatial variables and reported to be rather unstable. Here, we propose a memory model of the hippocampus that provides an interpretation of place cells consistent with these observations. We hypothesize that the hippocampus is a memory device that takes advantage of the correlations between sensory experiences to generate compressed representations of the episodes that are stored in memory. A simple neural network model that can efficiently compress information naturally produces place cells that are similar to those observed in experiments. It predicts that the activity of these cells is variable and that the fluctuations of the place fields encode information about the recent history of sensory experiences. Place cells may simply be a consequence of a memory compression process implemented in the hippocampus.
    Cover page: Place cells may simply be memory cells: Memory compression leads to spatial tuning and history dependence
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    • Peer Reviewed
    UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2024)

    Social pain, the emotional pain caused by aversive experiences with one’s social group, can have deleterious effects on both mental and physical health. The “pain overlap theory” proposes that the experience of social pain can overlap with and modulate physical pain. However, we do not know if a neural substrate exists where social and physical pain overlap. To address this gap, in this dissertation, I designed a novel Social Exclusion paradigm, which we have named the “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO) task in which mice are separated from their cagemates by a switchable glass divider and observe their cagemates collectively consume a reward. Chapter 1 explores the characterization of novel behavioral motifs during Social Exclusion and the subsequent changes to different modalities of physical pain. Using unsupervised machine learning techniques, we have discovered a “Active Coping” in which mice are more likely to climb to, rear near, or orient towards the social group, which is elevated during Social Exclusion. After Social Exclusion, mice also have enhanced nocifensive responses. Chapter 2 investigates the overlap of social and physical pain within the anterior insular cortex. Results indicate that social and physical pain do not spatially overlap at the single unit, but rather Social Exclusion induces a change in the population response to physical pain and alters the encoding of nociceptive stimuli in the aIC. This change in physical pain encoding is mediated by the recruitment of the endocannabinoid and oxytocin neuromodulatory systems. Overall, the results from this dissertation suggest we have generated a Social Exclusion paradigm within rodents that successfully modulates the sensory perception of physical pain and that the anterior insular cortex can effectively integrates social and physical pain using neuromodulation,

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