Cortical circuits for transforming whisker sensation into goal-directed licking.

Vahid Esmaeili,Carl Ch Petersen,Georgios Foustoukos,Anastasiia Oryshchuk,Sylvain Crochet,Keita Tamura

doi:10.1016/j.conb.2020.08.003

Vahid Esmaeili, Carl Ch Petersen + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2020.08.003

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Abstract

Animals can learn to use sensory stimuli to generate motor actions in order to obtain rewards. However, the precise neuronal circuits driving learning and execution of a specific goal-directed sensory-to-motor transformation remain to be elucidated. Here, we review progress in understanding the contribution of cortical neuronal circuits to a task in which head-restrained water-restricted mice learn to lick a reward spout in response to whisker deflection. We first examine 'innate' pathways for whisker sensory processing and licking motor control, and then discuss how these might become linked through reward-based learning, perhaps enabled by cholinergic-gated and dopaminergic-gated plasticity. The aim is to uncover the synaptically connected neuronal pathways that mediate reward-based learning and execution of a well-defined sensory-to-motor transformation.

Highlights

An essential function of the brain is to interpret incoming sensory information in the context of behavioral demands and learned associations in order to drive appropriate motor output
We focus on how ‘innate’ circuits in the mouse brain processing whisker sensory information can be linked to ‘innate’ circuits controlling tongue and jaw movements through rewardbased learning, such that a whisker sensory stimulus drives licking motor output in order to obtain a reward
Cortex-wide processing of whisker sensation The whiskers on the rodent’s snout are arranged in a highly stereotypical map and this organization is topographically preserved throughout the neuronal pathway that signals tactile sensory information from the snout to the whisker primary somatosensory barrel cortex (Figure 1a) [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]

Summary

Introduction

An essential function of the brain is to interpret incoming sensory information in the context of behavioral demands and learned associations in order to drive appropriate motor output. Connecting sensory and motor circuits through reward-based learning As a hypothesis for the basis of future experimental investigations, we propose that the highest order cortical regions such as mPFC and hippocampus might contribute to rule learning (Figure 4a), imposing context-dependent routing of sensory signals from wS1 and wS2 to frontal areas such as wM2, which might communicate with tjM2/ALM and tjM1 to drive licking motor output Subcortical regions such as thalamus and basal ganglia are likely to contribute importantly to initiating goal-directed licking, and might contribute to exciting frontal motor-related cortex in response to whisker stimuli (Figure 4a).

Petersen CCH

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