Ensemble activity in rat corticostriatal circuits during habit learning

描述（由申请人提供）：当我们重复目标导向的行为时，这些行为通常会成为习惯性的和例行公事，以至于我们几乎可以不假思索地执行它们。这种形成习惯的能力在我们的正常生活中是非常有价值的。当我们能够以习惯的模式运作时，我们释放了认知资源。目标导向行为成为习惯的过程引起了基础科学家和医生的极大兴趣，因为当这个习惯过程出错时，行为问题就会出现。在以重复行为为主要症状的神经精神疾病中，习惯的形成可能是一种障碍。当我们失去了形成习惯的现成设施时，思想和行动可能会失去正常例程赋予我们行为的基本组织的一部分。拟议的工作的目标是确定电路水平的神经机制，这种过渡从审议的行为表现的习惯模式的性能，其中的行为继续执行，而不参考原始的目标。我们知道，前额叶皮层和纹状体的某些部分对于习惯的形成是必要的，但它们如何作用以允许行为转变为习惯行为仍然不清楚。我们同时记录了从早期习得到过度训练期间习惯形成的整个过程中前额叶皮层和纹状体的神经活动。我们发现，随着目标导向行为向习惯行为的转变，纹状体和前额皮质不同部位的神经元放电模式发生了显著变化。我们现在提出实验来确定这些区域如何相互作用，以及是否存在“控制器”区域，通过在大鼠形成习惯时干扰或沉默个别区域，以了解这种大脑区域网络如何在灵活的目标导向行为和不太灵活的习惯行为之间进行转换。行为的灵活性和固定性之间的平衡的紊乱在从帕金森病到强迫症到精神病的许多神经系统和神经精神障碍中是关键的。因此，所提出的实验与NIMH了解、预防和治疗精神疾病的使命直接相关。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): As we repeat goal-directed behaviors, these behaviors often become habitual and so routine that we can perform them almost without thinking. This capacity to form habits is very valuable in our normal lives. When we can operate in a habitual mode, we free up cognitive resources. The process by which goal-directed behaviors become habitual has attracted great interest among basic scientists and also among physicians, because when this habit-process goes awry, behavioral problems can emerge. In neuropsychiatric disorders in which repetitive behaviors are predominant symptoms, habit forming may be in overdrive. When we lose the ready facility to form habits, thoughts and actions may lose part of the fundamental organization that normal routines confer on our behavior. The goal of the proposed work is to identify the circuit-level neural mechanisms that underlie this transition from deliberative behavioral performance to a habitual mode of performance in which the behavior continues to be performed without reference to the original goal. It is known that parts of prefrontal cortex and the striatum are necessary for habit formation, but how they act to allow the behavioral shift to habitual behavior still are not understood. We have recorded neural activity in the prefrontal cortex and striatum simultaneously through the entire process of habit formation from early acquisition to the over-training period when the habit becomes ingrained. We have found that as the shift from goal-directed to habitual behavior occurs, there are remarkable changes in the firing patterns of neurons both in different parts of the striatum and in the prefrontal cortex. We now propose experiments to determine how these regions interact and whether there are 'controller' regions by perturbing or silencing individual zones as rats form habits, in order to understand how this network of brain regions bring about shifts between flexible goal-directed behavior and less flexible habitual behavior. Disturbances in the balance between flexibility and fixity of behavior are critical in a number of neurologic and neuropsychiatric disorders ranging from Parkinson's disease to obsessive-compulsive disorder to psychosis. Thus, the experiments proposed are directly related to the mission of the NIMH to understand, prevent and cure mental illness.