Douglas Weldon, Stone Professor of Psychology, with alumni, Carlyn Patterson '06, Erica Colligan '06, Christina Nemeth '06 and Avery Rizio '09 recently published an article in Behavioral Neuroscience. The paper reports an investigation of the superior colliculus, an area of the midbrain that might be involved in the detection of and reaction to significant events.
In the experiment, the activity of individual superior colliculus neurons was recorded as rats traversed a maze to receive rewards. The results showed that some cells exhibited activity reflecting the magnitude of the reward that was being retrieved, suggesting that these cells might participate in the initial processing of the stimuli. The research was the topic of Patterson's senior fellowship, and Colligan, Nemeth and Rizio collected data as summer research participants. A poster describing the research was presented at the 2006 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
In the experiment, the activity of individual superior colliculus neurons was recorded as rats traversed a maze to receive rewards. The results showed that some cells exhibited activity reflecting the magnitude of the reward that was being retrieved, suggesting that these cells might participate in the initial processing of the stimuli. The research was the topic of Patterson's senior fellowship, and Colligan, Nemeth and Rizio collected data as summer research participants. A poster describing the research was presented at the 2006 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
