The Neural Basis of Dopamine-Driven Deficits in Cognition and Perception

Jones Parker, PhD, assistant professor, of Neuroscience, Pharmacology, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, has received funding from the National Institute of Mental Health to study dopamine’s role in cognition and perception to the level of individual brain regions and cell types.  

Parker shared the aims of the project and his next steps for the research.  

What are the aims of the project?  

To determine how pathological increases in the neurotransmitter dopamine alter how the sensory perception and cognition and how the brain encodes these processes.  

What are your next steps? 

We will proceed with ongoing studies using miniaturized fluorescence microscopes to record neural activity during behavioral tests of cognition and perception in two different regions of the striatum—a brain region that is heavily innervated by dopamine neurons and implicated in schizophrenia, a disease where perception and cognition go awry.  

What do you hope will come out of this funded research? 

Our hope is that our research pinpoints the specific brain cell types underlying deficits in perception and cognition in diseases like psychosis to develop better treatments, as existing ones have limited efficacy for perceptual disturbances (e.g., hallucinations) and zero efficacy for deficits in cognition.   

Read more about this project.