Schulz Andreas L, Woldeit Marie L, Gonçalves Ana I, Saldeitis Katja, Ohl Frank W
Department Systems Physiology, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology Magdeburg, Germany.
Department Systems Physiology, Leibniz Institute for NeurobiologyMagdeburg, Germany; Department Systems Biology, Institute of Biology, Otto-von-Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2016 Jan 11;9:368. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00368. eCollection 2015.
Goal directed behavior and associated learning processes are tightly linked to neuronal activity in the ventral striatum. Mechanisms that integrate task relevant sensory information into striatal processing during decision making and learning are implicitly assumed in current reinforcement models, yet they are still weakly understood. To identify the functional activation of cortico-striatal subpopulations of connections during auditory discrimination learning, we trained Mongolian gerbils in a two-way active avoidance task in a shuttlebox to discriminate between falling and rising frequency modulated tones with identical spectral properties. We assessed functional coupling by analyzing the field-field coherence between the auditory cortex and the ventral striatum of animals performing the task. During the course of training, we observed a selective increase of functional coupling during Go-stimulus presentations. These results suggest that the auditory cortex functionally interacts with the ventral striatum during auditory learning and that the strengthening of these functional connections is selectively goal-directed.
目标导向行为和相关的学习过程与腹侧纹状体中的神经元活动紧密相连。当前的强化模型隐含地假设了在决策和学习过程中将与任务相关的感觉信息整合到纹状体处理中的机制，但人们对这些机制的理解仍然很薄弱。为了确定听觉辨别学习过程中皮质-纹状体连接亚群的功能激活情况，我们在穿梭箱中对蒙古沙鼠进行双向主动回避任务训练，以区分具有相同频谱特性的降频和升频调制音调。我们通过分析执行任务的动物听觉皮层和腹侧纹状体之间的场-场相干性来评估功能耦合。在训练过程中，我们观察到在“执行”刺激呈现期间功能耦合有选择性地增加。这些结果表明，在听觉学习过程中，听觉皮层与腹侧纹状体在功能上相互作用，并且这些功能连接的加强是有选择性地以目标为导向的。
