Prefrontal Cortex Contributions to Behavior Organization

描述（由申请人提供）：本提案的总体目标是了解前额皮质如何促进行为组织。前额皮质病理可能与精神分裂症或强迫症的无组织行为症状有关。本研究将研究大鼠前额叶皮层的行为组织和前边缘/下边缘（PL/IL）区域的作用。PL/IL是大鼠在旧策略成功的环境中学习新策略所必需的。这一建议假设PL/IL也需要灵活地使用两种先前学习过的策略。大鼠将被教导使用一种策略解决迷宫，然后在大鼠学习第二种策略或灵活使用两种熟悉的策略时，PL/IL将被停用。将从执行相同的PL/IL依赖性任务的大鼠身上获取PL/IL神经元的电生理记录。PL/IL活动的行为和任务相关性将提示这些神经元如何编码信息以及PL/IL如何促进灵活行为的组织。通过了解前额皮质区域的正常功能，我们可能开始了解功能障碍如何与疾病相关。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall goal of this proposal is to understand how the prefrontal cortex contributes to the organization of behavior. Prefrontal cortical pathology may be linked to symptoms of disorganized behavior in schizophrenia or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Here, behavioral organization and the role of the prelimbic/infralimbic (PL/IL) region of the rat prefrontal cortex will be investigated. The PL/IL is necessary for rats to learn a new strategy in the same environment where an old strategy was previously successful. This proposal hypothesizes that the PL/IL is also required to use two previously learned strategies flexibly. Rats will be taught to solve a maze using one strategy, then the PL/IL will be inactivated while the rats learn a second strategy or use two familiar strategies flexibly. Electrophysiological recordings of PL/IL neurons will be taken from rats performing the same PL/IL dependent tasks. Behavioral and task correlates of PL/IL activity will suggest how these neurons encode information and how the PL/IL contributes to the organization of flexible behavior. By understanding normal function in prefrontal cortical regions, we may begin to understand how dysfunction is related to disease.