Sakurai Yoshio, Song Kichan, Tachibana Shota, Takahashi Susumu
Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University Kyoto, Japan.
Laboratory of Neural Circuitry, Graduate School of Brain Science, Doshisha University Kizugawa, Japan.
Front Syst Neurosci. 2014 Feb 6;8:11. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2014.00011. eCollection 2014.
In this review, we focus on neuronal operant conditioning in which increments in neuronal activities are directly rewarded without behaviors. We discuss the potential of this approach to elucidate neuronal plasticity for enhancing specific brain functions and its interaction with the progress in neurorehabilitation and brain-machine interfaces. The key to-be-conditioned activities that this paper emphasizes are synchronous and oscillatory firings of multiple neurons that reflect activities of cell assemblies. First, we introduce certain well-known studies on neuronal operant conditioning in which conditioned enhancements of neuronal firing were reported in animals and humans. These studies demonstrated the feasibility of volitional control over neuronal activity. Second, we refer to the recent studies on operant conditioning of synchrony and oscillation of neuronal activities. In particular, we introduce a recent study showing volitional enhancement of oscillatory activity in monkey motor cortex and our study showing selective enhancement of firing synchrony of neighboring neurons in rat hippocampus. Third, we discuss the reasons for emphasizing firing synchrony and oscillation in neuronal operant conditioning, the main reason being that they reflect the activities of cell assemblies, which have been suggested to be basic neuronal codes representing information in the brain. Finally, we discuss the interaction of neuronal operant conditioning with neurorehabilitation and brain-machine interface (BMI). We argue that synchrony and oscillation of neuronal firing are the key activities required for developing both reliable neurorehabilitation and high-performance BMI. Further, we conclude that research of neuronal operant conditioning, neurorehabilitation, BMI, and system neuroscience will produce findings applicable to these interrelated fields, and neuronal synchrony and oscillation can be a common important bridge among all of them.
在本综述中，我们聚焦于神经元操作性条件反射，即在不涉及行为的情况下，神经元活动的增加会直接得到奖赏。我们讨论了这种方法在阐明神经元可塑性以增强特定脑功能方面的潜力，以及它与神经康复和脑机接口进展的相互作用。本文所强调的待条件化活动的关键在于多个神经元的同步和振荡放电，这反映了细胞集合体的活动。首先，我们介绍一些关于神经元操作性条件反射的著名研究，这些研究报告了动物和人类中神经元放电的条件性增强。这些研究证明了对神经元活动进行自主控制的可行性。其次，我们提及最近关于神经元活动同步性和振荡的操作性条件反射的研究。特别是，我们介绍了一项最近的研究，该研究显示了猴子运动皮层中振荡活动的自主增强，以及我们的研究，该研究显示了大鼠海马体中相邻神经元放电同步性的选择性增强。第三，我们讨论在神经元操作性条件反射中强调放电同步性和振荡的原因，主要原因是它们反映了细胞集合体的活动，而细胞集合体被认为是大脑中代表信息的基本神经元编码。最后，我们讨论神经元操作性条件反射与神经康复和脑机接口（BMI）的相互作用。我们认为，神经元放电的同步性和振荡是开发可靠的神经康复和高性能BMI所需的关键活动。此外，我们得出结论，对神经元操作性条件反射、神经康复、BMI和系统神经科学的研究将产生适用于这些相互关联领域的发现，并且神经元同步性和振荡可以成为它们之间共同的重要桥梁。
