Edward Horng-An Nieh

Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MIT · Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Rationale: The basolateral amygdala (BLA) and medial geniculate nucleus of the thalamus (MGN) have both been shown to be necessary for the formation of associative learning. While the role that the BLA plays in this process has long been emphasized, the MGN has been less well-studied and surrounded by debate regarding whether the relay of sensory...

Rationale The basolateral amygdala (BLA) and medial geniculate nucleus of the thalamus (MGN) have both been shown to be necessary for the formation of associative learning. While the role that the BLA plays in this process has long been emphasized, the MGN has been less well-studied and surrounded by debate regarding whether the relay of sensory in...

Population recordings of calcium activity are a major source of insight into neural function. Large datasets require automated processing, but this can introduce errors that are difficult to detect. Here we show that popular time course-estimation algorithms often contain substantial misattribution errors affecting 10–20% of transients. Misattribut...

Hippocampal neurons encode physical variables1–7 such as space1 or auditory frequency6 in cognitive maps8. In addition, functional magnetic resonance imaging studies in humans have shown that the hippocampus can also encode more abstract, learned variables9–11. However, their integration into existing neural representations of physical variables12,...

Population recordings of calcium activity are a major source of insight into neural function. Large dataset sizes often require automated methods, but automation can introduce errors that are difficult to detect. Here we show that automatic time course estimation can sometimes lead to significant misattribution errors, in which fluorescence is ascr...

Dopamine modulates medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) activity to mediate diverse behavioural functions1,2; however, the precise circuit computations remain unknown. One potentially unifying model by which dopamine may underlie a diversity of functions is by modulating the signal-to-noise ratio in subpopulations of mPFC neurons3–6, where neural activi...

Observational learning is a powerful survival tool allowing individuals to learn about threat-predictive stimuli without directly experiencing the pairing of the predictive cue and punishment. This ability has been linked to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the basolateral amygdala (BLA). To investigate how information is encoded and transmi...

Orchestrating appropriate behavioral responses in the face of competing signals that predict either rewards or threats in the environment is crucial for survival. The basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) and prelimbic (PL) medial prefrontal cortex have been implicated in reward-seeking and fear-related responses, but how information flows betw...

Signals of energy homeostasis interact closely with neural circuits of motivation to control food intake. An emerging hypothesis is that the transition to maladaptive feeding behavior seen in eating disorders or obesity may arise from dysregulation of these interactions. Focusing on key brain regions involved in the control of food intake (ventral...

Projections from the lateral hypothalamus (LH) to the ventral tegmental area (VTA), containing both GABAergic and glutamatergic components, encode conditioned responses and control compulsive reward-seeking behavior. GABAergic neurons in the LH have been shown to mediate appetitive and feeding-related behaviors. Here we show that the GABAergic comp...

Projections from the lateral hypothalamus (LH) to the ventral tegmental area (VTA), containing both GABAergic and glutamatergic components, encode conditioned responses and control compulsive reward-seeking behavior. GABAergic neurons in the LH have been shown to mediate appetitive and feeding-related behaviors. Here we show that the GABAergic comp...

The motivation to seek social contact may arise from either positive or negative emotional states, as social interaction can be rewarding and social isolation can be aversive. While ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA) neurons may mediate social reward, a cellular substrate for the negative affective state of loneliness has remained elusive....

The lateral hypothalamus and ventral tegmental area are two brain regions that have long been known to be involved in processing reward and the control of feeding behaviors. We continue work in this area by identifying the functional connectivity between these two regions, providing evidence that LH neurons projecting to the VTA encode conditioned...

(Cell 160, 528–541; January 29, 2015) During the preparation of our paper, we mistakenly labeled the y axis in Figure 7I, describing the gnawing response of mice during photoactivation of the GABAergic component of the LH-VTA projections, as well as the y axes in Figures S4J, S4L, S4M, and S7E–S7H, depicting the results of the behavioral tests in t...

The lateral hypothalamic (LH) projection to the ventral tegmental area (VTA) has been linked to reward processing, but the computations within the LH-VTA loop that give rise to specific aspects of behavior have been difficult to isolate. We show that LH-VTA neurons encode the learned action of seeking a reward, independent of reward availability. I...

The neural circuits underlying emotional valence and motivated behaviors are several synapses away from both defined sensory inputs and quantifiable motor outputs. Electrophysiology has provided us with a suitable means for observing neural activity during behavior, but methods for controlling activity for the purpose of studying motivated behavior...

Intracranial electroencephalography (IEEG) plays an important role in guiding epilepsy surgery in pediatric epilepsy patients. Recently, there has been increased interest in higher frequency components of clinical IEEG recordings and their potential relationship to epileptogenic brain tissue. We employ a previously validated, automated discrete gam...

Intracranial electroencephalography (IEEG) plays an important role in guiding epilepsy surgery in pediatric epilepsy patients. Recently, there has been increased interest in higher frequency components of clinical IEEG recordings and their potential relationship to epileptogenic brain tissue. We employ a previously validated, automated discrete gam...