עמית וינוגרד

הבנת הבסיס העצבי של רגשות

The Vinograd laboratory seeks to understand how emotional states are generated by neural circuits. We ask how populations of neurons in the hypothalamus and related limbic structures create internal states such as aggression, fear, mating drive, and social motivation.

A central idea in the lab is that emotional states are not simply reflexive responses to stimuli, but dynamical processes that can be initiated, maintained, intensified, suppressed, and read out by downstream circuits. We study these processes using cellular-resolution imaging, optogenetic perturbations, freely moving behavior, and computational models of neural population dynamics.

Major research directions include:

1. Neural dynamics of emotional states
   How do hypothalamic circuits generate persistent internal states such as aggressiveness or threat?
2. Circuit mechanisms of attractor dynamics
   How do recurrent connectivity, neuromodulators, neuropeptides, and hormones shape the stability and persistence of emotional states?
3. General principles across behaviors
   Are aggression, fear, and mating implemented by shared dynamical principles, or by distinct circuit mechanisms?
4. From internal state to behavior
   How are neural state variables decoded by downstream circuits to control action selection, escalation, persistence, and individual behavioral variability?
5. Computational psychiatry and affective dysregulation
   Can dynamical systems approaches help explain how emotional states become maladaptive in psychiatric disorders?

הבנת הבסיס העצבי של רגשות

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