Epigenetic Basis of Motivated Behavior

Motivated behavior is the inner drive that allows us to initiate, guide and maintain cognitive, social and physical development. It is especially key to our well-being and central to executive functioning.   Healthy executive functioning, the conscious cognitive control over decision-making, is contingent on consistent application of motivated behaviors in a goal-directed manner.  This is referred to as goal-directed behavior, and supports the pursuit of goals necessary for adapting to changes in the environment that endorse our best interest.   This behavior is often learned and is highly sensitive to modulation by aversive or appetitive environmental stimuli.  Disruption to the natural development of motivational behavior can contribute to the acquisition of abnormal psychiatric states and ultimately lead to negative symptoms in neuropsychiatric pathologies.  Traumatic experiences are recognized as severely altering goal-directed behavior, especially in adults subjected to trauma in early life. While well described at a behavioral level, motivated behaviors are poorly understood at a molecular level. Because they can be modulated by the environment, but also have an innate component, they depend on a combination of non-genetic (epigenetic) and genetic factors, and on their interaction. These molecular interactions explain how the environment translates into phenotypic change through the modulation of genetic regulatory factors.  It is likely that these factors underlie the diverse molecular signalling cascades responsible for behavioral control. This often results in altered protein expression and a corresponding phenotypic change.  We aim towards the identification of target genes which underly motivated behaviors in order to delineate the molecular and signalling pathways that are affected.  This will reveal the specific changes in the epigenome and transcriptome that can be modulated by experiences and occur in adult individuals during motivated behaviors.