Covert skill learning in a cortical-basal ganglia circuit.

ABSTRACT: We learn complex skills such as speech and dance through a gradual process of trial and error. Cortical-basal ganglia circuits have an important yet unresolved function in this trial-and-error skill learning; influential 'actor-critic' models propose that basal ganglia circuits generate a variety of behaviours during training and learn to implement the successful behaviours in their repertoire. Here we show that the anterior forebrain pathway (AFP), a cortical-basal ganglia circuit, contributes to skill learning even when it does not contribute to such 'exploratory' variation in behavioural performance during training. Blocking the output of the AF

SUBMITTER: Charlesworth JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3377745 | biostudies-literature | 2012 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature