Publication

Cortical circuits for transforming whisker sensation into goal-directed licking

Carl Petersen, Sylvain Crochet, Vahid Esmaeili, Georgios Foustoukos, Keita Tamura, Anastasiia Oryshchuk
2020
Journal Articles

Abstract

Animals can learn to use sensory stimuli to generate motor actions in order to obtain rewards. However, the precise neuronal circuits driving learning and execution of a specific goal-directed sensory-to-motor transformation remain to be elucidated. Here, we review progress in understanding the contribution of cortical neuronal circuits to a task in which head-restrained water-restricted mice learn to lick a reward spout in response to whisker deflection. We first examine ‘innate’ pathways for whisker sensory processing and licking motor control, and then discuss how these might become linked through reward-based learning, perhaps enabled by cholinergic-gated and dopaminergic-gated plasticity. The aim is to uncover the synaptically connected neuronal pathways that mediate reward-based learning and execution of a well-defined sensory-to-motor transformation.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/f0df055e-4e4c-4263-a419-311d2573658c

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Carl Petersen, Sylvain Crochet, Vahid Esmaeili, Georgios Foustoukos, Keita Tamura, Anastasiia Oryshchuk
2020
Journal Articles

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/f0df055e-4e4c-4263-a419-311d2573658c

About this result

Related concepts (32)

Motor control

Motor control is the regulation of movement in organisms that possess a nervous system. Motor control includes reflexes as well as directed movement. To control movement, the nervous system must integrate multimodal sensory information (both from the external world as well as proprioception) and elicit the necessary signals to recruit muscles to carry out a goal. This pathway spans many disciplines, including multisensory integration, signal processing, coordination, biomechanics, and cognition, and the computational challenges are often discussed under the term sensorimotor control.

Reward system

The reward system (the mesocorticolimbic circuit) is a group of neural structures responsible for incentive salience (i.e., "wanting"; desire or craving for a reward and motivation), associative learning (primarily positive reinforcement and classical conditioning), and positively-valenced emotions, particularly ones involving pleasure as a core component (e.g., joy, euphoria and ecstasy). Reward is the attractive and motivational property of a stimulus that induces appetitive behavior, also known as approach behavior, and consummatory behavior.

Mesolimbic pathway

The mesolimbic pathway, sometimes referred to as the reward pathway, is a dopaminergic pathway in the brain. The pathway connects the ventral tegmental area in the midbrain to the ventral striatum of the basal ganglia in the forebrain. The ventral striatum includes the nucleus accumbens and the olfactory tubercle. The release of dopamine from the mesolimbic pathway into the nucleus accumbens regulates incentive salience (e.g.

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