scholarly journals PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning inDrosophila

PeerJ ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. e1971 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Colomb ◽  
Björn Brembs
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Procedural Learning ◽  
Song Learning ◽  
Operant Reflex ◽  
Kinase C ◽  
Infrared Laser Beam ◽  
Olfactory Stimuli ◽  
Self Learning ◽  
Homogeneous Environment

Tethering a fly for stationary flight allows for exquisite control of its sensory input, such as visual or olfactory stimuli or a punishing infrared laser beam. A torque meter measures the turning attempts of the tethered fly around its vertical body axis. By punishing, say, left turning attempts (in a homogeneous environment), one can train a fly to restrict its behaviour to right turning attempts. It was recently discovered that this form of operant conditioning (called operant self-learning), may constitute a form of motor learning inDrosophila. Previous work had shown that Protein Kinase C (PKC) and the transcription factordFoxPwere specifically involved in self-learning, but not in other forms of learning. These molecules are specifically involved in various forms of motor learning in other animals, such as compulsive biting inAplysia, song-learning in birds, procedural learning in mice or language acquisition in humans. Here we describe our efforts to decipher which PKC gene is involved in self-learning inDrosophila. We also provide evidence that motorneurons may be one part of the neuronal network modified during self-learning experiments. The collected evidence is reminiscent of one of the simplest, clinically relevant forms of motor learning in humans, operant reflex conditioning, which also relies on motorneuron plasticity.

scholarly journals PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in Drosophila

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Colomb ◽  
Björn Brembs
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Procedural Learning ◽  
Song Learning ◽  
Operant Reflex ◽  
Kinase C ◽  
Infrared Laser Beam ◽  
Olfactory Stimuli ◽  
Self Learning ◽  
Homogeneous Environment

Tethering a fly for stationary flight allows for exquisite control of its sensory input, such as visual or olfactory stimuli or a punishing infrared laser beam. A torque meter measures the the turning attempts of the tethered fly around its vertical body axis. By punishing, say, left turning attempts (in a homogeneous environment), one can train a fly to restrict its behaviour to right turning attempts. It was recently discovered that this form of operant conditioning (called operant self-learning), may constitute a form of motor learning in Drosophila. Previous work had shown that Protein Kinase C (PKC) and the transcription factor dFoxP were specifically involved in self-learning, but not in other forms of learning. These molecules are specifically involved in various forms of motor learning in other animals, such as compulsive biting in Aplysia, song-learning in birds, procedural learning in mice or language acquisition in humans. Here we describe our efforts to decipher which PKC gene is involved in self-learning in Drosophila. We also provide evidence that motorneurons may be one part of the neuronal network modified during self-learning experiments. The collected evidence is reminiscent of one of the simplest, clinically relevant forms of motor learning in humans, operant reflex conditioning, which also relies on motorneuron plasticity

scholarly journals PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in Drosophila

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Colomb ◽  
Björn Brembs
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Procedural Learning ◽  
Song Learning ◽  
Operant Reflex ◽  
Kinase C ◽  
Infrared Laser Beam ◽  
Olfactory Stimuli ◽  
Self Learning ◽  
Homogeneous Environment

Tethering a fly for stationary flight allows for exquisite control of its sensory input, such as visual or olfactory stimuli or a punishing infrared laser beam. A torque meter measures the the turning attempts of the tethered fly around its vertical body axis. By punishing, say, left turning attempts (in a homogeneous environment), one can train a fly to restrict its behaviour to right turning attempts. It was recently discovered that this form of operant conditioning (called operant self-learning), may constitute a form of motor learning in Drosophila. Previous work had shown that Protein Kinase C (PKC) and the transcription factor dFoxP were specifically involved in self-learning, but not in other forms of learning. These molecules are specifically involved in various forms of motor learning in other animals, such as compulsive biting in Aplysia, song-learning in birds, procedural learning in mice or language acquisition in humans. Here we describe our efforts to decipher which PKC gene is involved in self-learning in Drosophila. We also provide evidence that motorneurons may be one part of the neuronal network modified during self-learning experiments. The collected evidence is reminiscent of one of the simplest, clinically relevant forms of motor learning in humans, operant reflex conditioning, which also relies on motorneuron plasticity

Perceptual Sequence Learning Is More Severely Impaired than Motor Sequence Learning in Patients with Chronic Cerebellar Stroke

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (12) ◽  
pp. 2207-2215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Dirnberger ◽  
Judith Novak ◽  
Christian Nasel
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Procedural Learning ◽  
Perceptual Information ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Cerebellar Stroke ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
Significant Motor

Patients with cerebellar stroke are impaired in procedural learning. Several different learning mechanisms contribute to procedural learning in healthy individuals. The aim was to compare the relative share of different learning mechanisms in patients and healthy controls. Ten patients with cerebellar stroke and 12 healthy controls practiced a visuomotor serial reaction time task. Learning blocks with high stimulus–response compatibility were exercised repeatedly; in between these, participants performed test blocks with the same or a different (mirror-inverted or unrelated) stimulus sequence and/or the same or a different (mirror-inverted) stimulus–response allocation. This design allowed to measure the impact of motor learning and perceptual learning independently and to separate both mechanisms from the learning of stimulus–response pairs. Analysis of the learning blocks showed that, as expected, both patients and controls improved their performance over time, although patients remained significantly slower. Analysis of the test blocks revealed that controls showed significant motor learning as well as significant visual perceptual learning, whereas cerebellar patients showed only significant motor learning. Healthy participants were able to use perceptual information for procedural learning even when the rule linking stimuli and responses had been changed, whereas patients with cerebellar lesions could not recruit this perception-based mechanism. Therefore, the cerebellum appears involved in the accurate processing of perceptual information independent from prelearned stimulus–response mappings.

scholarly journals Somatosensory Contribution to Motor Learning Due to Facial Skin Deformation

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (3) ◽  
pp. 1230-1238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takayuki Ito ◽  
David J. Ostry
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Cutaneous Afferents ◽  
Facial Skin ◽  
Target Movement ◽  
Movement Initiation ◽  
Amplitude Control ◽  
Muscle Receptors ◽  
Lip Movement ◽  
Skin Stretch

Motor learning is dependent on kinesthetic information that is obtained both from cutaneous afferents and from muscle receptors. In human arm movement, information from these two kinds of afferents is largely correlated. The facial skin offers a unique situation in which there are plentiful cutaneous afferents and essentially no muscle receptors and, accordingly, experimental manipulations involving the facial skin may be used to assess the possible role of cutaneous afferents in motor learning. We focus here on the information for motor learning provided by the deformation of the facial skin and the motion of the lips in the context of speech. We used a robotic device to slightly stretch the facial skin lateral to the side of the mouth in the period immediately preceding movement. We found that facial skin stretch increased lip protrusion in a progressive manner over the course of a series of training trials. The learning was manifest in a changed pattern of lip movement, when measured after learning in the absence of load. The newly acquired motor plan generalized partially to another speech task that involved a lip movement of different amplitude. Control tests indicated that the primary source of the observed adaptation was sensory input from cutaneous afferents. The progressive increase in lip protrusion over the course of training fits with the basic idea that change in sensory input is attributed to motor performance error. Sensory input, which in the present study precedes the target movement, is credited to the target-related motion, even though the skin stretch is released prior to movement initiation. This supports the idea that the nervous system generates motor commands on the assumption that sensory input and kinematic error are in register.

scholarly journals Coordinated cerebellar climbing fiber activity signals learned sensorimotor predictions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Heffley ◽  
Eun Young Song ◽  
Ziye Xu ◽  
Benjamin N. Taylor ◽  
Mary Anne Hughes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Motor Learning ◽  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Motor Output ◽  
Neural Pathways ◽  
Learning Paradigm ◽  
Correlated Activity ◽  
Task Parameters

AbstractThe prevailing model of cerebellar learning states that climbing fibers (CFs) are both driven by, and serve to correct, erroneous motor output. However, this model is grounded largely in studies of behaviors that utilize hardwired neural pathways to link sensory input to motor output. To test whether this model applies to more flexible learning regimes that require arbitrary sensorimotor associations, we have developed a cerebellar-dependent motor learning paradigm compatible with both mesoscale and single dendrite resolution calcium imaging in mice. Here, we find that CFs are preferentially driven by and more time-locked to correctly executed movements and other task parameters that predict reward outcome, exhibiting widespread correlated activity within parasagittal processing zones that is governed by these predictions. Together, such CF activity patterns are well-suited to drive learning by providing predictive instructional input consistent with an unsigned reinforcement learning signal that does not rely exclusively on motor errors.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document