New publication on a role of human habenula in learning

Habenula is an evolutionarily conserved structure in the brain and regulates the central monoaminergic metabolism. Despite a surge of interest on the habenula in neuroscience, function of the human habenula remains unclear. Dr. Yoshino led the project members including our lab performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis during a contextual learning task.The left and right habenula were activated during aversive outcomes and the activation was associated with aversive prediction errors. Furthermore, dynamic causal modeling (DCM) analyses demonstrated the left and right habenula to the left and right hippocampus connections during the presentation of contextual stimuli. These findings serve to highlight the neural mechanisms that may be relevant to understanding the broader relationship between the habenula and learning processes.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00165

#Neurobiology #Hiroshima #Brain #神経 #広島 #脳