That Neuroscience Guy - Neuroscience Bites-The SNPc

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

Next in our series of Neuroscience Bites, we discuss the Substantia Nigra Pars compacta: a brain area important for dopamine function in the brain. 

Hi, my name is Oliver Kregolson, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to another Neuroscience Byte. Today I'm going to tell you about a really small but important part of the brain called the substantia nigra pars compacta. Yeah, you got that right, the SNPC. Now, what the SNPC does is it's a key part of the dopamine circuitry in your brain. So what that means is it plays a role in a ton of things. For instance, when the SNPC is damaged and there's problems with the projections from it, this is what underlies the motor deficits in Parkinson's

disease. In terms of human reward learning, so when we learn from feedback or rewards, the SNPC releases dopamine to help stretch neural connections. So even though this is a tiny, tiny little part of the brain, it plays a role in a range of functions, including voluntary movement, cognitive planning, emotions, reward processing, and even cognition and learning. And when this little brain region gets damaged, that can lead to things like Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Tourette's syndrome, schizophrenia, ADHD, an obsessive compulsive disorder. So the substantia negra pars compacta. It's a part of the brain that's part of the

dopamine circuitry. And basically when it fires more, dopamine is released and that helps with a range of cognitive functions like I've outlined. Anyway, that's just a quick little bite on the SNPC. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, you can always check out the website and of course, please subscribe to the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. My name is Olav Krig Olson and I'm that neuroscience guy.