Evan Knep Presents at the Neuroscience 2024 Conference
Evan Knep, graduate student, presented at the Neuroscience 2024 Conference on October 6 in Chicago as a member of the Grissom Lab.
Knep explains the research behind his poster, “Alterations in decision making in mice following CRISPR-mediated ablation of NMDA receptors in medial prefrontal cortex”:
Schizophrenia has been linked to NMDA receptor depletion in the prefrontal cortex, but the specific symptoms of that depletion are still unclear. In this study we used a mouse model to examine how ablating NMDA receptors in the medial prefrontal cortex impacts decision making behaviors in a bandit task.
We find that ablated animals showed impairments in their ability to adapt to changing reward structures, and their choices became seemingly less dependent on the outcome of their previous choices. These results suggest that NMDA receptor depletion in the prefrontal cortex may impair our ability to use feedback from previous choices to guide future behavior.
Evan Knep, graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota.
Composed by Madison Stromberg, communications assistant.
