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: 9513927
• 负责人: Varun Saravanan
• 金额: $ 4.45万
• 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/9513927
• 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。学习制作合适的 整合感觉信息和处理后的运动反应对于任何生物的生存都是至关重要的 生物。这种感觉运动学习总是依赖于强化线索，无论这些线索是否有效。 外部提供或通过有机体感觉反馈的内部评估提供。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，多巴胺如何传达 关于自然发生的行为中的外部强化物的信息仍不清楚。 拟议的项目将研究孟加拉语自然行为中基于强化线索的学习 雀类。孟加拉雀执行一种刻板的习得运动行为（歌曲），该行为很大程度上依赖于 维护的感官反馈。他们的歌曲由一系列快速产生的声音手势组成 （“音节”）。虽然他们的歌曲在成年后通常很稳定，但我们的实验室开发了一种强化 驱动成年鸟类改变其歌曲的一种特定声学特征（音高）的学习范例。因此 我们的建议将使用这种学习范式来阐明多巴胺在关联外部因素中的作用 具有特定行为组成部分的强化提示，然后发生改变。 我们的中心假设是多巴胺在强化过程中​​执行两种主要的不同计算 学习，并且这些计算受到多巴胺受体的两种广泛亚型的调节。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 强化学习的计算并确定每个计算所做的相对贡献 在学习成功的鸟类中。我们的第二个目标是利用药理学操作来确定 强化学习中的个体多巴胺受体途径。总而言之，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。这样的理解会 此外，还有助于识别并最终治疗脑外伤后发生的学习缺陷 受伤或其他神经损伤。