Interactions in the Corticostriatal Network

项目3。皮质纹状体网络中的相互作用：基底神经节功能的破坏导致 在各种临床条件下出现严重的运动和认知缺陷。虽然基底神经节功能的确切性质仍然难以捉摸，但基底神经节解剖学和生理学研究的最新进展已经产生了可以在行为动物中进行测试的特定计算理论。由于基底神经节的主要输入和输出来自多个皮层区域，因此基底神经节可能在控制皮层信息处理中发挥主要作用。本研究将通过同时记录前额叶皮层和纹状体多个部位的单个单位和场电位活动，来研究这两个结构之间的相互作用。拟议的实验将使用经过训练的猴子来执行基于奖励的学习和决策任务。第一个实验将检验这样一个假设，即皮层输入和多巴胺神经元传递的奖赏信号的会聚在纹状体中提供了一个底物，以产生使反应选择过程产生偏差所必需的信号。第二个实验将确定基底神经节的作用是否仅限于可以建立稳定的反应偏差模式的情况，或者 纹状体中的神经元是否也参与了动态决策任务，其中动物需要避免习惯性的反应模式。最后，在这两个实验中获得的神经记录将进行广泛的分析，使用广泛的分析技术，以确定是否在纹状体神经元的活动的时间结构是系统的影响，在皮层输入的同步振荡。总的来说，这些实验的结果将促进我们对皮层和基底神经节之间通信性质的理解。项目3将补充其他项目，研究基底神经节，运动皮层，辅助运动区（项目4）和腹侧运动前皮层（项目5）在从离散的替代品中选择反应中的作用，有助于我们共同的目标，即理解运动结构之间的相互作用如何有助于协调眼睛，头部和手部运动的选择和执行。

Project 3. Interactions in the Corticostriatal Network: Disruption of basal ganglia function leads to severe motor and cognitive deficits in various clinical conditions. Although the exact nature of basal ganglia functions remains elusive, recent progress in the study of basal ganglia anatomy and physiology have generated specific computational theories that can be tested in behaving animals. Because the main inputs and outputs of the basal ganglia arise from multiple cortical areas, the basal ganglia are likely to play a major role in the control of cortical information processing. This project will focus on the interactions between the prefrontal cortex and the striatum by simultaneously recording single-unit and field-potential activity from multiple sites in these two structures. The proposed experiments will use monkeys trained to perform reward-based learning and decision-making tasks. The first experiment will test the hypothesis that the convergence of cortical inputs and reward signals conveyed by the dopamine neurons provides a substrate in the striatum to generate signals necessary to bias the process of response selection. The second experiment will determine whether the role of the basal ganglia is limited to a situation in which a stable pattern of response bias can be established, or whether the neurons in the striatum are also involved in a dynamic decision-making task where the animal is required to avoid a habitual pattern of responses. Finally, the neural recordings obtained in these two experiments will be analyzed extensively using a wide range of analytical techniques to determine whether the temporal structure in the activity of striatal neurons is systematically influenced by synchronized oscillations in the cortical inputs. Overall, the results from these experiments will advance our understanding of the nature of communications between the cortex and the basal ganglia. Project 3 will complement other projects examining the role of the basal ganglia, motor cortex, supplementary motor area (Project 4) and ventral premotor cortex (Project 5) in selecting responses from among discrete alternatives, contributing to our shared goal of understanding how interactions among motor structures contribute to the selection and execution of coordinated eye, head and hand movements.