NEURONAL BASIS OF PERCEPTUAL LEARNING

虽然“学习”一词通常用于存储 复杂的感知，如识别新的物体或面孔， 越来越多的证据表明，我们对简单事物的认知 刺激属性，如线的方向或位置， 不固定，但可以通过实践大大提高。 这些 这些改进被称为感知学习， 这些过程与传统形式的 在大脑的其他部分学习。 这项研究考察了学习 在视觉处理的早期阶段，利用视觉系统 研究神经元可塑性的基本机制。 利用细胞外记录的方法的组合， 光学成像和药理学操作将用于 研究视觉辨别任务中的知觉学习， 这一过程发生的神经基质。 研究 躯体感觉和听觉系统已经表明， 感觉辨别力的改善与 皮层神经元反应特异性早期水平的变化 处理. 大脑皮层的数量增加， 对辨别刺激做出反应，这可能会导致 通过允许更大数量的 神经元参与任务。 我们试图观察视觉系统的类似变化， 获得初级视觉的功能结构图， 猴子接受视觉训练前后的大脑皮层 几个月的歧视。 通过 随后的一系列药理学操作， 阻止各种输入到皮层区域， 发生，我们希望阐明神经元连接的模式 这形成了感知改善的基础。

Although the term "learning" is normally applied to the storage of complex percepts, such as the recognition of new objects or faces, there is increasing evidence that our perception of even simple stimulus attributes, such as the orientation or position of a line, is not fixed but can improve considerably with practice. These improvements have been termed perceptual learning to emphasize the similarities between these processes and classical forms of learning in other parts of the brain. This study examines learning in early levels of visual processing, utilizing the visual system to examine basic mechanisms of neuronal plasticity. A combination of approaches utilizing extracellular recording, optical imaging and pharmacologic manipulations will be used to examine perceptual learning in a visual discrimination task and the neuronal substrate by which This process takes place. Studies in somatosensory and auditory systems have shown that perceptual improvements in sensory discriminations are correlated with changes in neuronal response specificity at early levels of cortical processing. There is an increase in the amount of cortex which responds to the discrimination stimulus, which presumably leads to improved perceptual capabilities by allowing a larger number of neurons to participate in the task. We seek to observe analogous changes in the visual system by obtaining maps of the functional architecture of primary visual cortex before and after monkeys are trained on a visual discrimination for a period of several months. Through a subsequent series of pharmacologic manipulations in which we block various inputs to the region of cortex in which these changes occur, we hope to elucidate the patterns of neuronal connectivity which form the substrate for the perceptual improvements.