Top-Down Control of Sensorimotor Performance by Prefrontal Cortex

前额叶皮层对感觉运动性能的自上而下控制

• 批准号: 0642951
• 负责人: Mark Laubach
• 金额: $ 36万
• 依托单位: John B. Pierce Laboratory, Incorporated
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-06-01 至 2010-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0642951&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Top; Down; Control; Sensorimotor; Performance

This project will examine how a part of the brain, called the prefrontal cortex, isinvolved in controlling behavior. The prefrontal cortex controls behavior muchlike a business executive controls a company. "Top-down" control signals aresent from the prefrontal cortex to lower brain areas, such as the motor cortex, tocontrol when animals respond to external stimuli. These signals might conveyinformation to the motor cortex about the expected timing of stimuli or mightsimply control the timing of motor action by sending a "go" signal to the motorcortex. To investigate this issue, recordings of neural activity will be made inthe prefrontal and motor cortices as animals learn to time stimuli in a behavioraltask. Anatomical methods will be used to determine if conversations between theprefrontal and motor cortices occur through a special part of the motor cortex,called the premotor cortex.Intellectual merit: This project will be one of the first to examine interactions betweenneurons in prefrontal and motor areas of the cerebral cortex by recordingin the two areas simultaneously. This project is also unique in that interactionsthese areas are studied during learning. Finally, the project will be the first to resolveif the rodent premotor cortex receives information from the prefrontal cortexand thus might provide the first evidence that rodents have a cortical area that isanalogous to the premotor cortex of higher animals, including human beings.Broader impact: All experimental protocols and procedures will be made availableto the neuroscience community and the general public. A novel Linux distributionwill be developed that contains programs needed to reproduce this research.Undergraduate students will support these efforts. Students in Yale'sSummer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program will take part inthe project and will be supervised by graduate students working in the PI's lab,who will acquire training that goes beyond normal graduate student research activities.In addition, the PI has initiated a neuroscience program for young childrenthrough a local public library and is taking part in the Neuroscientist-TeacherPartner Program of the Society for Neuroscience. All materials from the libraryprogram and the PI's interactions with local teachers will be made available athttp://spikelab.jbpierce.org.

该项目将研究大脑的一部分（称为前额皮质）如何参与控制行为。前额皮质控制行为就像企业高管控制公司一样。 “自上而下”的控制信号从前额叶皮层发送到较低的大脑区域，例如运动皮层，以控制动物何时对外部刺激做出反应。这些信号可能会向运动皮层传达有关刺激的预期时间的信息，或者可能通过向运动皮层发送“开始”信号来简单地控制运动动作的时间。为了研究这个问题，当动物在行为任务中学习计时刺激时，将在前额叶和运动皮质中记录神经活动。解剖学方法将用于确定前额叶和运动皮层之间的对话是否通过运动皮层的一个特殊部分（称为前运动皮层）进行。智力价值：该项目将是第一个研究前额叶和运动区域神经元之间相互作用的项目之一。通过同时在两个区域进行记录来记录大脑皮层。该项目的独特之处还在于在学习过程中研究这些领域的相互作用。最后，该项目将是第一个解决啮齿动物前运动皮层是否从前额叶皮层接收信息的问题，从而可能提供第一个证据，证明啮齿动物具有与包括人类在内的高等动物的前运动皮层相似的皮层区域。 更广泛的影响：所有实验方案和程序将提供给神经科学界和公众。将开发一种新颖的 Linux 发行版，其中包含重现这项研究所需的程序。本科生将支持这些努力。耶鲁大学暑期本科生研究奖学金（SURF）项目的学生将参加该项目，并由在 PI 实验室工作的研究生进行监督，他们将获得超出正常研究生研究活动的培训。此外，PI 还发起了通过当地公共图书馆为幼儿开展神经科学项目，并正在参加神经科学学会的神经科学家-教师合作伙伴项目。图书馆计划的所有材料以及 PI 与当地教师的互动都将在 http://spikelab.jbpierce.org 上提供。