The learning of new skills is characterized by an initial phase of rapid improvement in performance and a phase of more gradual improvements as skills are automatized and performance asymptotes. Using in vivo striatal recordings, we observed region-specific changes in neural activity during the different phases of skill learning, with the associative or dorsomedial striatum being preferentially engaged early in training and the sensorimotor or dorsolateral striatum being engaged later in training. Ex vivo recordings from medium spiny striatal neurons in brain slices of trained mice revealed that the changes observed in vivo corresponded to regionaland training-specific changes in excitatory synaptic transmission in the striatum. Furthermore, the potentiation of glutamatergic transmission observed in dorsolateral striatum after extensive training was preferentially expressed in striatopallidal neurons, rather than striatonigral neurons. These findings demonstrate that region-and pathway-specific plasticity sculpts the circuits involved in the performance of the skill as it becomes automatized.Learning to execute and automatize certain actions is essential for survival. The learning of new skills by trial and error, such as riding a bicycle or playing a piano, is characterized by an initial stage of rapid improvement in performance, followed by a phase of more gradual improvements as the skills are consolidated and performance asymptotes 1-4 . These two different phases of skill learning have distinct behavioral and physiological hallmarks 1,[5][6][7] . For example, the early fast phase is susceptible to interference, whereas the later, more

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Adenosine and dopamine signaling exert opposite effects in the basal ganglia, a brain region involved in sensory-motor integration. Thus, adenosine agonists induce motor depression and adenosine antagonists, such as caffeine, produce motor activation (1). These opposite effects result from specific antagonistic interactions between subtypes of adenosine and dopamine receptors in the striatum, the main input structure of the basal ganglia. In fact, striatal dopamine receptors and, to some extent, adenosine receptors are segregated in the two main populations of ␥-aminobutyric acid (GABA) efferent neurons. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURESCell Cultures-Maintenance of SH-SY5Y cells (parental and D 2 Rtransfected cells) as well as the pharmacological characterization and maintenance of D 2 R-and D 1 R-transfected mouse fibroblast Ltk Ϫ cells are described in detail elsewhere (7-9). For primary cultures, striata were removed from 16-day-old Sprague-Dawley rat embryos (B&K Universal) in Ca 2ϩ /Mg 2ϩ -free PBS supplemented with 20 units/ml penicillin and 20 g/ml streptomycin (Invitrogen). The tissue fragments were pooled and mechanically dissociated in SFM Neurobasal serum-free medium (Invitrogen), supplemented with B27 (Invitrogen), glutamine (2 mM; Invitrogen), penicillin/streptomycin (20 units/ml/20 g/ml; Invitrogen), and ␤-mercaptoethanol (25 M) (Invitrogen). Cells were collected by centrifugation at 100 ϫ g for 5 min and resuspended in fresh medium. The resulting single-cell suspension was seeded on 24-well plates coated with gelatin (Sigma) and poly-L-lysine (Sigma), and cells were grown at 37°C in saturation humidity with 5% CO 2 .Immunolabeling Experiments-Neuroblastoma cells were grown on glass coverslips coated with poly-L-lysine (Sigma) and exposed to vari-* This work was