Faculty Sponsor: Laverne Camille Melón
Keming Liu
Hi, I’m Keming, a rising sophomore planning to major in Neuroscience and Mathematics. I’m especially interested in brain dynamics and mental health. Outside of academics, you might find me boxing, drawing, or simply lying down on the grass somewhere.
Abstract: The ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) form a critical circuit that supports reward, decision-making, and social behavior. However, the mechanisms by which acute ethanol (EtOH) exposure and social experience modulate oscillatory dynamics and directionality within this circuit remain unclear. In this study, we recorded local field potentials (LFPs) from the VTA and PFC of freely behaving mice during open-field exploration, EtOH or saline injection, and social interaction with a juvenile conspecific. Using spectral and time–frequency analyses, we quantified intra-regional phase–amplitude coupling (iPAC), inter-regional PAC (irPAC), and theta-band Granger causality (GC). We found that both EtOH and social interaction enhanced iPAC in the VTA and PFC, with the PFC exhibiting frequency-specific suppression around 10 Hz during social interaction. Inter-regionally, irPAC indicates a consistent shift: VTA→PFC coupling was suppressed, while PFC→VTA coupling was enhanced around 6 Hz under both EtOH and social contexts. GC analyses showed a reduction in VTA→PFC directional influence following EtOH. Notably, VTA→PFC GC was negatively correlated with irPAC, suggesting an inverse relationship between directed connectivity and cross-frequency synchrony. Therefore, these findings shows that ethanol and social interactions potentially modulate the VTA–PFC circuit in a direction- and frequency-specific manner.
KL-QAC-Poster