title: Selective Increase of Auditory Cortico-Striatal Coherence during Auditory-Cued Go/NoGo Discrimination Learning.
abstract: Goal directed behavior and associated learning processes are tightly linked to neuronal activity in the ventral striatum. Mechanisms that integrate task relevant sensory information into striatal processing during decision making and learning are implicitly assumed in current reinforcement models, yet they are still weakly understood. To identify the functional activation of cortico-striatal subpopulations of connections during auditory discrimination learning, we trained Mongolian gerbils in a two-way active avoidance task in a shuttlebox to discriminate between falling and rising frequency modulated tones with identical spectral properties. We assessed functional coupling by analyzing the field-field coherence between the auditory cortex and the ventral striatum of animals performing the task. During the course of training, we observed a selective increase of functional coupling during Go-stimulus presentations. These results suggest that the auditory cortex functionally interacts with the ventral striatum during auditory learning and that the strengthening of these functional connections is selectively goal-directed.
authors.affiliation: Department Systems Physiology, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Schulz
authors.affiliation: Department Systems Physiology, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Marie L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Woldeit
authors.affiliation: Department Systems Physiology, Leibniz Institute for NeurobiologyMagdeburg, Germany; Department Systems Biology, Institute of Biology, Otto-von-Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Ana I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Gonçalves
authors.affiliation: Department Systems Physiology, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saldeitis
authors.affiliation: Department Systems Physiology, Leibniz Institute for NeurobiologyMagdeburg, Germany; Department Systems Biology, Institute of Biology, Otto-von-Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany; Center for Behavioral Brain SciencesMagdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Frank W
authors.initials: FW
authors.lastname: Ohl
keywords: Mongolian gerbil; auditory cortex; avoidance learning; discrimination learning; field-field coherence; functional coupling; shuttlebox; ventral striatum