Establishing the role of dopamine in Vocal Learning in Songbirds

确定多巴胺在鸣禽声音学习中的作用

• 批准号: 9396265
• 负责人: Varun Saravanan
• 金额: $ 4.4万
• 依托单位: EMORY UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-09-01 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9396265
• 关键词: Acoustics; Adult; Area; Auditory; Basal Ganglia; Bayesian Analysis; Behavior; Birds; Brain; Cell Nucleus; Cues; Data; Defect; Desire for food; Dopamine; Dopamine D1 Receptor; Dopamine D2 Receptor; Dopamine Receptor; Evaluation; Finches; Functional disorder; Future; Gestures; Goals; Human; Impairment; Individual; Lead; Learning; Lesion; Light; Link; Loudness; Maintenance; Mathematics; Measures; Modeling; Motor; Motor output; Neurologic; Neurotransmitters; Noise; Operant Conditioning; Organism; Outcome; Parkinson Disease; Pathology; Pathway interactions; Pharmacology; Production; Psychological reinforcement; Punishment; Rewards; Role; Sensory; Series; Songbirds; Stimulus; Stroke; Techniques; Testing; Training; Traumatic Brain Injury; Update; Work; aversive conditioning; base; computer framework; information processing; insight; nervous system disorder; neural circuit; neurotoxic; novel; receptor; reinforcer; relating to nervous system; response; sensory feedback; vocal learning

Project Summary: During behavior, the brain is constantly bombarded with sensory feedback. Learning to produce an appropriate motor response upon integrating that sensory information and processing it is essential for the survival of any organism. Such sensorimotor learning is always dependent on reinforcement cues, whether those cues are provided externally or through an internal evaluation of an organism's sensory feedback. While recent studies, including our own work, have implicated a role for dopamine in reinforcement learning, how dopamine conveys information about an external reinforcer in a naturally occurring behavior is still unclear. The proposed project will study reinforcement cue based learning in a natural behavior in Bengalese finches. Bengalese finches perform a stereotypical learned motor behavior (song) that is heavily dependent on sensory feedback for maintenance. Their song consists of a series of rapidly produced vocal gestures (“syllables”). Though their songs are usually stable in adulthood, our lab has developed a reinforcement learning paradigm that drives adult birds to change one particular acoustic feature of their song (pitch). Thus our proposal will use this learning paradigm to elucidate the role of dopamine in associating an external reinforcement cue with a particular component of behavior that is then changed. Our central hypothesis is that dopamine performs two major distinct computations in reinforcement learning and that these computations are modulated by the two broad subtypes of dopamine receptors. We will test our hypothesis through two specific aims. Our first aim uses Bayesian Inference to elucidate these computations underlying reinforcement learning and identify the relative contributions each computation makes in birds that learned successfully. Our second aim uses pharmacological manipulations to establish the role of individual dopamine receptor pathways in reinforcement learning. To conclude, our studies will greatly enhance our understanding of the neural computations underlying reinforcement learning. Such understanding would furthermore help in identifying and eventually treating learning deficits that occur following traumatic brain injury or other neurological insults.

项目概要： 在行为过程中，大脑不断受到感官反馈的轰炸。学习制作一个合适的 在整合感觉信息和处理时的运动反应对于任何动物的生存都是至关重要的。 有机体这种感觉运动学习总是依赖于强化线索，无论这些线索是 外部提供或通过生物体的感觉反馈的内部评估。虽然最近的研究， 包括我们自己的工作，都暗示了多巴胺在强化学习中的作用，多巴胺是如何传达 关于自然发生行为中的外部干扰的信息仍然不清楚。 拟议的项目将研究强化线索为基础的学习在一个自然的行为在孟加拉 雀类。孟加拉雀执行刻板的学习运动行为（歌曲），这是严重依赖于 用于维护的感官反馈。它们的歌声由一系列快速发声的手势组成 （“syllables”）。虽然它们的歌声在成年期通常是稳定的，但我们的实验室已经开发出一种强化 学习范式，驱使成年鸟类改变其歌曲的一个特定的声学特征（音高）。因此 我们的建议将使用这种学习范式来阐明多巴胺在联系外部环境中的作用。 一种强化暗示，带有特定的行为成分，然后改变。 我们的中心假设是多巴胺在强化过程中进行两种主要的不同计算 这些计算受到两种广泛的多巴胺受体亚型的调节。我们将 通过两个具体目标来检验我们的假设。我们的第一个目标是使用贝叶斯推理来阐明这些 强化学习的基础计算，并确定每个计算的相对贡献 成功学习的鸟类。我们的第二个目标是使用药理学操作来确定 强化学习中的多巴胺受体通路。总之，我们的研究将大大提高 我们对强化学习背后的神经计算的理解。这种理解将 此外，还有助于识别并最终治疗脑外伤后出现的学习缺陷， 损伤或其他神经损伤。