title: Habit learning dissociation in rats with lesions to the vermis and the interpositus of the cerebellum.
abstract: After cerebellar tumors resection, patients show motor skill learning impairments but also cognitive deficits. However, their exact origins remain controversial. Using a rat model of cerebellar injury, we assessed the involvement of two structures often damaged during resection (vermis and interpositus nuclei) on habits development. During extended training of an instrumental task, rats develop response routines that are no longer voluntary or goal-directed but habit-based, evidenced by their insensitivity to changes in the value of the reward. Here we showed that, in contrast to sham or vermis lesioned rats, discrete lesions to interpositus nuclei prevented rats from developing habits with overtraining, without motor difficulties, nor alteration of the instrumental task acquisition. Our results suggest that the role of the cerebellum can be extended from motor skill learning to cognitive routines learning. Similar habit impairment could possibly account for some of the long-term outcome difficulties observed in cerebellar-damaged patients.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Neurobiologie de l'Apprentissage, de la Mémoire et de la Communication, CNRS UMR 8620, Bat. 446, Université Paris Sud, 91405 Orsay, France.
authors.forename: Delphine
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Callu
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Puget
authors.forename: Alexis
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Faure
authors.forename: Maryvonne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guegan
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: El Massioui
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000293:injuries / Q000502:physiology*; D006184:Habits; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley