Habit learning is associated with major shifts in frequencies of oscillatory activity and synchronized spike firing in striatum.

ABSTRACT: Rhythmic brain activity is thought to reflect, and to help organize, spike activity in populations of neurons during on-going behavior. We report that during learning, a major transition occurs in task-related oscillatory activity in the ventromedial striatum, a striatal region related to motivation-dependent learning. Early on as rats learned a T-maze task, bursts of 70- to 90-Hz high-γ activity were prominent during T-maze runs, but these gradually receded as bursts of 15- to 28-Hz β-band activity became pronounced. Populations of simultaneously recorded neurons synchronized their spike firing similarly during both the high-γ-band and β-band bursts. Thus, the structure of spike firing was reorganized during learning in relation to different rhythms. Spiking was concentrated around the tr

SUBMITTER: Howe MW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3189047 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature