Synaptic plasticity underlying vocal learning

声音学习的突触可塑性

• 批准号: 8400955
• 负责人: Mark Nathaniel Miller
• 金额: $ 5.39万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-08-01 至 2014-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8400955
• 关键词: Accounting; Acoustics; Action Potentials; Acute; Adaptive Behaviors; Address; Adolescence; Adolescent; Adult; Animals; Automobile Driving; Behavior; Birds; Brain; Cell Nucleus; Chronic; Complex; Cues; Data; Disease; Electrophysiology (science); Environment; Frequencies; Functional disorder; Hippocampus (Brain); In Vitro; Interneurons; Learning; Measures; Modeling; Motor; Motor Neurons; Movement Disorders; Nature; Neocortex; Nervous system structure; Neurons; Organism; Pattern; Performance; Production; Property; Prosencephalon; Role; Sensory; Shapes; Slice; Songbirds; Structure; Synapses; Synaptic plasticity; Whole-Cell Recordings; awake; bird song; in vitro activity; in vivo; insight; male; motor control; motor learning; nervous system disorder; neural circuit; programs; relating to nervous system; reproductive success; research study; response; transmission process; vocal learning; vocalization

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Sensorimotor learning allows organisms to interact adaptively with their environment, yet a detailed description of how sensory input modifies motor circuitry during learning has not been developed. Since many movement disorders involve dysfunction of motor planning and disruption of learned motor programs, understanding how motor programs are instantiated in motor circuits during learning is essential. Vocal learning in songbirds is a particularly tractable model of sensorimotor learning since birdsong is an ethological and readily quantifiable behavior, and because the neuroanatomical substrates of song production are identified and accessible. Song learning entails the convergence of juvenile song toward a tutor song, and although changes in song are associated with changes in premotor nuclei, the synaptic and cellular plasticity mechanisms underlying song learning remain unknown. This proposal describes experiments that will combine a form of rapid song learning with chronic in vivo electrophysiology in behaving animals to identify patterns of premotor activity that accompany changes in song, and utilize in vitro whole-cell recording and minimal stimulation to identify the synaptic loci and mechanisms of this plasticity. Results from these experiments will provide an integrated and comprehensive account of vocal motor learning, from synaptic plasticity to changes in circuit dynamics to altered vocal behavior, and thereby give broad insight into how the nervous system learns adaptive and complex behaviors.

描述（由申请人提供）： 感觉运动学习允许生物体与其环境适应性地相互作用，但尚未开发出关于感觉输入如何在学习过程中改变运动电路的详细描述。由于许多运动障碍涉及运动规划功能障碍和学习运动程序的破坏，因此了解运动程序在学习过程中如何在运动回路中实例化至关重要。鸣禽的声音学习是一种特别容易处理的感觉运动学习模型，因为鸟鸣是一种行为学且易于量化的行为，并且因为歌曲产生的神经解剖学基础是可识别和可访问的。歌曲学习需要幼年歌曲向导师歌曲的融合，尽管歌曲的变化与运动前核的变化相关，但歌曲学习背后的突触和细胞可塑性机制仍然未知。该提案描述了将行为动物的快速歌曲学习与慢性体内电生理学相结合的实验，以识别伴随歌曲变化的运动前活动模式，并利用体外全细胞记录和最小刺激来识别突触位点和这种可塑性的机制。这些实验的结果将提供对发声运动学习的综合全面的解释，从突触可塑性到电路动力学的变化，再到发声行为的改变，从而对神经系统如何学习适应性和复杂行为提供广泛的了解。