Hippocampal-prefrontal mechanisms of learning to learn

项目总结 哺乳动物的大脑非常擅长从经验中快速学习。我们可以很快地得出结论 基于之前获得的知识，我们能够建立和维护详细的 仅仅一次接触刺激后的记忆。这种快速的、依赖经验的学习是严重依赖的。 关于图式，或学习集，这是学习的认知结构，组织知识并塑造如何传入 感官信息被解释。一个相关的现象是学会学习，这是在经历 一项任务可以加速学习结构相似的新任务或问题。几十年的实验工作已经 强调了海马体和前额叶皮质及其相互作用在联想学习中的重要作用 和记忆巩固。然而，学习学习背后的神经机制在很大程度上仍然是未知的。 特别是从先前的经验中学习对于成功的日常生活是至关重要的，而这种技能在患者身上受到了损害。 患有多种神经系统疾病，如阿尔茨海默病、注意力障碍、颞叶癫痫、 抑郁症和精神分裂症，这些疾病总共影响了数千万美国人。更深入地了解 学习的大脑机制可以为学习的神经学基础提供重要的见解- 这些患者的相关疾病，可用于开发针对记忆丧失和学习的治疗性干预 颠覆。为了研究学习学习的神经机制，我们将记录 当动物获得视觉联想任务的学习集时，海马体和前额叶皮质。在目标1中，我们将 确定学习集形成过程中海马区和前额叶神经元活动模式的变化 以支持快速学习。在目标2中，我们将描述海马区和海马区之间协调活动的变化 影响学习定势形成的前额叶皮质。我们假设学习集合习得伴随着一个 逐渐出现稳定的、抽象的任务相关信息的神经表示，可以从 问题对问题，从而限制了学习期间的神经探索空间，并导致更快的学习 通过经验。此外，我们预计将观察到从依赖海马体到依赖皮质的逐渐转变 表征贯穿于学习学习的全过程。

Project summary The mammalian brain is remarkably ecient at rapidly learning from experience. We can quickly form generalizations about our environment based on previously acquired knowledge, and we are able to establish and maintain detailed memories after just a single exposure to a stimulus. This rapid, experience-dependent learning is critically dependent on schemas, or learning sets, which are learned cognitive structures that organize knowledge and shape how incoming sensory information is interpreted. A related phenomenon is learning to learn, which is observed when experience with a task accelerates the learning of novel tasks or problems with a similar structure. Decades of experimental work have emphasized the essential role of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex|and their interactions|in associative learning and memory consolidation. However, the neural mechanisms underlying learning to learn remain largely unknown. Learning eciently from prior experience is crucial for successful everyday life, and this skill is impaired in patients with a number of neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, attention de cit disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, depression, and schizophrenia, which collectively a ect tens of millions of Americans. A deeper understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying learning to learn can provide important insights into the neurological basis of learning- related de cits in these patients, and can be used to develop e ective interventions targeted at memory loss and learning disruption. To investigate the neural mechanisms of learning to learn, we will record neuronal population activity in hippocampus and prefrontal cortex as animals acquire a learning set for a visual association task. In Aim 1, we will determine how neuronal activity patterns within hippocampus and prefrontal transform during learning set formation to support rapid learning. In Aim 2, we will characterize the changes in coordinated activity between hippocampus and prefrontal cortex that re ect learning set formation. We hypothesize that learning set acquisition is accompanied by a progressive emergence of stable, abstract neural representations of task-related information that can be re-used from problem to problem, thereby constraining the neural exploration space during learning and leading to faster learning through experience. In addition, we expect to observe a gradual shift from hippocampus-dependent to cortex-dependent representations throughout the process of learning to learn.