FENS 2026

Defne attended FENS 2026 in Barcelona to present her work with Mert on "Projection-Specific Control of Affective and Social Behavior by Ventral Pallidum Dlx-Expressing GABAergic Neurons in Rats", while also taking some time to discover the many beauties of Barcelona, from Gaudí's architectural masterpieces and culinary delights of the notoriously tourist-friendly city of Barcelona.

This project investigates the anatomical organization and diverse functions of ventral pallidal GABAergic neurons that project to the ventral tegmental area (VTA), nucleus accumbens (NAc), lateral habenula (LHb), and basolateral amygdala (BLA). Combining several techniques ranging from dual-viral circuit tracing and chemo/optogenetics to fiber photometry and in vivo multi-unit recordings, we aim to reveal how distinct ventral pallidal output pathways regulate affective, motivational, and social behaviors.