信鸽外纹体神经元对习得性目标认知的响应特性

习得性认知是生物通过后天学习,将外部目标与自身行为进行强化训练,形成一种条件反射的认知过程,信鸽外纹体神经元在认知前后响应如何变化尚不清楚。通过训练信鸽识别特定目标,同步记录外纹体神经元集群信号,从动作电位发放率、局部场电位伽马子频带能量、神经元间互信息等角度,分析信鸽在不同认知阶段外纹体神经元响应特征的变化规律,结果表明:习得目标认知建立前后,其神经元的响应从集中在目标呈现阶段调整到决策阶段;不同试次神经元响应间的同步性随着习得性目标认知的建立逐渐增强,表现出更稳定可靠的响应特征;神经元集群间的互信息显著弱于认知前,表明习得性目标认知减弱了神经元集群的冗余信息,提高了编码效率。

The Response Characteristics of Pigeon"s Ectostriatum Neurons to the Cognition of Learned Targets

Learned cognition mainly refers to a cognitive process in which organisms strengthened the training of the external targets and their own behaviors through acquired learning and form a conditioned reflex. It is not clear how the response of ectostriatum neurons in pigeons changes after cognition compared to before. In this study, pigeons were trained to recognize specific target and neural population signals were recorded from their ectostriatum with planted MEA. Response features in different training stages were extracted and compared, including firing rate based on Spike, power of local field potentials (LFP) in the gamma sub-band, multual information between each two neurons and so on. The results showed that, 1) response of neurons shifted from target presentation stage to decision stage after the establishment of learned cognition; 2) The synchrony between different trials was gradually enhanced with the establishment of learned cognition, and showed more stable and reliable response characteristics; 3) The mutual information between the neurons populatiom was significantly weaker than that before learned cognition, which indicated that the learned cognition weakened the redundant information among neuron population and improved neuronal encoding efficiency.