Reveal the neuronal mechanism behind goal-directed behavior From Science

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Our actions are inspired by the goals we want to achieve. However, little is known about the mechanisms in our brain that enable us to make the right decisions to achieve our goals. In a new study, researchers from the Frederick Michel biomedical Institute in Switzerland and the University of Basel now determined the sequence of events that occurred in the mouse brain when the mouse took a certain behavior to obtain a reward, and how it adjusted its behavior when the reward was not the expected reward. Relevant research results were published in Science Journal on January 7, 2022, with the title of “a neural mechanism for kinetic control of behavior”. The corresponding author of the paper is Dr. Andreas L ü thi of the Frederick Michel biomedical Institute.

Imagine going to a bakery every day just to buy a specific kind of bread. Then you find that your favorite bread will no longer be sold there. You’ll stop going to that bakery. This is called goal directed behavior, and the amygdala, the almond shaped emotional processing center in the brain, is known to be involved in controlling this process.

Neuronal mechanism of non cue target oriented behavior. Picture from science, 2022, DOI: 10.1126/science abg7277。

So far, the role of amygdala in cue directed behavior has been investigated in mice. Cue oriented behavior refers to letting the mouse act in a certain way when visual or auditory cues (such as sound) are signals that something is going to happen (such as the mouse will receive some sugar) (such as where it will receive sugar in the cage). However, how the amygdala participates in goal-directed behavior – when mice do something at their own pace without prompting – has not been clear.

In this new study, Julien Courtin, a postdoctoral researcher of the L ü thi team, trained mice in goal-oriented tasks. In a few days, the mice learned that when they pushed one lever, they got a drop of sucrose, and when they pushed another lever, they got a drop of milk. Once they became experts on these tasks, Courtin adjusted the experimental setup: he rewarded them without letting them press the lever; Or let them press the lever, but there is no reward; Or he allows them to choose one of the rewards to eat. In all these different actions of these mice, Courtin recorded brain activity in their amygdala and, together with Yael bitterman, a computational neuroscientist in L ü thi laboratory, developed a new analytical method to decipher the neuronal code behind it.

Prediction machine

Courtin and bitterman identified different neuronal populations in the amygdala involved in all aspects of this goal-directed behavior. For example, they found that when mice pressed lever 1 in anticipation of reward 1, a group of neurons were active. But once lever 1 is no longer associated with this reward, the group of neurons loses activity. “This group of neurons is inactive not because the mouse presses the lever, but because the lever is related to the expectation of reward. When the mouse learns not to expect reward, this group of neurons is no longer active,” Courtin said

Most notably, these findings show that not only the type of reward, its size and the possibility of its occurrence, but also its value – a flexible parameter, depending on many factors (for example, how hungry mice are) – are reflected in the amygdala. The amygdala transmits all this information to other brain regions, which then use this information to make appropriate decisions and adjust behavior according to possible rewards.

L ü thi explained, “Just by looking at the amygdala, Courtin and bitterman can get a detailed picture of what the mouse expects and what it needs to do to get the reward. The amygdala makes predictions – if it does, it will get that, and it is adjusting those predictions according to changes. No other brain structure can predict what will happen so accurately.”

Impact on human beings

These findings are easily related to human behavior. Every day, when we perform hundreds of actions, we have certain expectations in our hearts. If expectations are not met, we adjust our behavior – we do things in different ways, or we do them less or more often. The neuronal mechanisms in the amygdala highlighted in this study in mice are also the basis of our behavior.

It is essential for us humans to be able to adjust our behavior according to predictions, but sometimes these processes are negatively affected, such as addiction, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or Parkinson’s disease. Courtin said, “under such circumstances, the behavioral sequence in the brain we have clarified may not be normally regulated. This may become a way to carry out clinical research. The challenge is how can we intervene in the process that goes wrong in the brain when a process occurs in such a short time?”

reference material:

Julien Courtin et al. A neuronal mechanism for motivational control of behavior. Science, 2022, doi:10.1126/science.abg7277.

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