R&D Group 5

We measure and analyze multicellular neural activity from multiple brain regions of reward-conditioned rodents to elucidate the brain reward system and its value representation. By applying systematic reward restriction to many individuals and altering the subjective value of rewards, we will confirm intra-individual changes in the neural representation of reward, extract neural activity correlated with subjective value, and verify inter-individual comparison. In addition, we will use optogenetic manipulation of subjective value to provide causal evidence for the validity of the inter-individual comparison. We will collaborate closely with R&D plan 4, which has many similarities in experimental and analytical techniques. In addition, we will establish an exploration task in a virtual space for rodents that can be compared to an equivalent task for humans developed in R&D plan 3, and we will record the neural activity during the task in detail. This R&D plan aims to provide statistical and causal support for the brain system mechanisms underlying the project.