Timing & Associative Learning

项目摘要 时间的能力是适应行为的基础。精确的运动行为是精心计时的。 是否采取行动的决定取决于对何时采取行动的了解。 适当对行动通常需要多长时间的记忆是大多数普通活动的基础， 计划一天或者知道过马路要花多长时间。这种对时间的学习是自动的 也是行为组织的基础时间安排混乱， 预期可预测的事件与许多精神疾病有关，包括 注意力缺陷多动症、精神分裂症和抑郁症。能力减弱 对未来后果的预期也在药物滥用障碍中发挥作用。扭曲 时间和预期既是障碍的症状，也是额外的来源。 问题 这项研究的目的是了解时间是如何学习，记忆和使用的。 引导行为。我们探索了支配这两种情况的心理和生物机制。 当我们在正确的时间做出反应时，那些控制我们抑制能力的因素， 在错误的时间做出反应。这些过程是在动物模型中研究的， 观察并改变皮质-纹状体-丘脑-皮质脑回路的功能， 这些能力的基础。特别是，我们感兴趣的是多巴胺信号在这些 电路传递关于时间的信息。我们将首次研究多巴胺如何发出信号， 大脑皮层传达关于事件是否以及何时发生的信息。我们还将测试 假设多巴胺也传达了关于信息可靠性的信息。 了解这些基本机制将导致新的治疗策略和目标， 广泛的精神疾病和人类问题。

Project Summary The ability to time underlies adaptive behavior. Precise motor behavior is carefully timed. Decisions about whether or not to take an action depend on knowledge of when they are appropriate. Memories for how long actions usually take underlies most ordinary activity such as planning a day or knowing how long it takes to cross a street. This learning of time is automatic and a foundation of behavioral organization. Disordered timing and deficits in the capacity to anticipate predictable events are associated with a number of psychiatric disorders including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia and depression. The diminished capacity to anticipate future consequences also play a role in substance abuse disorders. Distortions in timing and anticipation are both a symptom of the disorders as well as a source of additional problems. The purpose of this research is to understand how times are learned, remembered and used to guide behavior. We explore the psychological and biological mechanisms that govern both when we make a response at the right time and those that govern our ability to withhold a response when it is the wrong time. These processes are studied in animal models that allow us to observe and alter the functioning of the cortico-striatal-thalamo-cortical brain circuits that underlie these capacities. In particular, we are interested in how dopamine signaling in these circuits conveys information about time. For the first time we will study how dopamine signals to the cortex convey information about whether and when an event will occur. We will also test the hypothesis that the dopamine also conveys information about the reliability of that information. Understanding these basic mechanisms will lead to new treatment strategies and targets for a wide range of psychiatric disorders and human problems.