Learning-dependent plasticity and mnemonic encoding in parieto-frontal networks

描述（由申请人提供）：我们有一个显着的能力，学习和认识的行为意义，或类别成员，在我们的环境中的对象和事件。破坏这种能力的疾病，如中风，阿尔茨海默病和精神分裂症，可能会导致受影响患者的日常功能出现严重问题。虽然对刺激和事件进行分类的能力对我们与世界互动的能力至关重要，但我们对如何进行分类知之甚少。 这些类别是学习的。此外，关于范畴和其他抽象现象是如何储存在记忆中的，还有很多问题有待理解。对我们如何学习刺激的行为相关性以及这些信息如何加载到记忆中的机械理解可以大大提高我们治疗影响认知功能的疾病的能力。先前的工作表明，在两个相互连接的皮层区域，外侧顶内（LIP）区和外侧前额叶皮层（LPFC）的神经元活动，显示出强大的和强大的编码类别成员的刺激后，长期的培训。然而，关于神经元的类别表征在学习过程中是如何发展的，以及储存在长期记忆中的类别表征在行为过程中是如何转移到短期记忆中的，我们所知相对较少。该项目的目标是阐明LIP和LPFC中类别学习的行为和神经元动力学，并了解任务复杂性如何影响短期记忆中的信息表征。首先，我们将在类别学习过程中记录LIP和LPFC神经元群体，以了解神经元类别表征如何作为学习的函数发展。第二，我们将研究记忆的LIP和LPFC的神经元表征的任务依赖性，通过比较在视觉分类和识别任务与同一组运动刺激的受试者的神经元活动。这些研究的结果将对大脑如何学习有关视觉刺激的抽象信息并将其保存在记忆中产生一种机械的理解。拟议研究的长期目标是为理解和未来治疗影响学习，记忆和识别的疾病和病症提供基础。除了中风和阿尔茨海默病等神经系统疾病外，对影响学习的疾病（如注意力缺陷障碍和阅读障碍）的研究也可以从更详细地了解学习和记忆的大脑机制中受益。因此，从学习和记忆的神经基础研究中获得的知识可能会为神经和认知障碍的有价值的下一代治疗方法提供帮助。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We have a remarkable ability to learn and recognize the behavioral significance, or category membership, of objects and events in our environment. Diseases that disrupt this ability, such as Stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and Schizophrenia, can cause serious problems in the daily function of affected patients. While the ability to categorize stimuli and events is critical to our ability to interact with the world, little is known about how these categories are learned. Furthermore, much remains to be understood about how categories and other abstract phenomena are stored in memory. A mechanistic understanding of how we learn the behavioral relevance of stimuli and how such information is loaded into memory could greatly enhance our ability to treat diseases that affect cognitive function. Prior work has revealed that neuronal activity in two interconnected cortical areas, the lateral intraparietal (LIP) area and lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), show strong and robust encoding of the category membership of stimuli following long-term training. However, relatively little is known about how neuronal category representations develop during the learning process itself, and how category- representations stored in long-term memory are transferred to short-term memory during behavior. The goals of this project are to elucidate the behavioral and neuronal dynamics of category learning in LIP and LPFC, and to understand how task complexity affects representation of information in short-term memory. First, we will record from populations of LIP and LPFC neurons during the category-learning process in order to understand how neuronal category representations develop as a function of learning. Second, we will examine the task-dependence of mnemonic neuronal representations in LIP and LPFC by comparing neuronal activity in subjects during visual categorization and identification tasks with the same set of motion stimuli. The results of these studies will yield a mechanistic understanding of how the brain learns abstract information about visual stimuli and maintains it in memory. The long term goal of the proposed studies is to provide a basis for the understanding and future treatments of the diseases and conditions which affect learning, memory, and recognition. In addition to neurological disorders such as Stroke and Alzheimer's disease, work on conditions that affect learning such as Attention Deficit Disorder and Dyslexia could benefit from a more detailed understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying learning and memory. Thus, the knowledge gained from studying the neural basis of learning and memory will likely shed light onto valuable next-generation treatments for neurological and cognitive disorders.