Takashi Sato, Ph.D.
BBRF Grantee: 2020 – 2022
Medical University of South Carolina
Takashi Sato, Ph.D., Medical University of South Carolina, is probing the circuit mechanisms underlying impulsive actions, which are commonly observed in various disorders including ADHD, schizophrenia, substance-use disorder, and borderline personality disorder. The team will use an improvement upon past mouse models to study this, having developed a novel behavioral task that recapitulates the Stanford Marshmallow Test, a classic experiment for impulsive actions. Analysis will focus on the prelimbic cortex (PL), based on preliminary data in which this area, when deactivated, was specifically linked with impulsive actions. This project seeks to identify downstream areas, including the nucleus accumbens core (NAc), thalamus, and entorhinal cortex, which help translate signals into behavior.
