Operant conditioning deficits and modified local field potential activities in parvalbumin-deficient mice

Abstract

Altered functioning of GABAergic interneurons expressing parvalbumin (PV) in the basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical circuit are likely to be involved in several human psychiatric disorders characterized by deficits in attention and sensory gating with dysfunctional decision-making behavior. However, the contribution of these interneurons in the ability to acquire demanding learning tasks remains unclear. Here, we combine an operant conditioning task with local field potentials simultaneously recorded in several nuclei involved in reward circuits of wild-type (WT) and PV-deficient (PVKO) mice, which are characterized by changes in firing activity of PV-expressing interneurons. In comparison with WT mice, PVKO animals presented significant deficits in the acquisition of the selected learning task. Recordings from prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens (NAc) and hippocampus showed significant decreases of the spectral power in beta and gamma bands in PVKO compared with WT mice particularly during the performance of the operant conditioning task. From the first to the last session, at all frequency bands the spectral power in NAc tended to increase in WT and to decrease in PVKO. Results indicate that PV deficiency impairs signaling necessary for instrumental learning and the recognition of natural rewards.

Posterior parietal cortex oscillatory activity shapes persistent spatial memory impairments induced by soluble amyloid-β oligomers

“…Customized scripts from Chronux (versions 2.11/R2014 and 2.12/R2018 available at http://chronux.org/; [31]) were also employed for systematic spectral analysis [32,33]. Probability maps for comparing pairs of spectrograms were generated as described in previous studies [33,34]. Histograms of probability density for selected frequency bands were obtained based on Jackknifed estimation of variance between pairs of spectrograms (timefrequency plots of the LFP powers), covering all frequency values (resolution, df = 0.5 Hz) within each time window (resolution, dt = 0.5 s).…”

Parvalbumin-Positive Interneurons Regulate Cortical Sensory Plasticity in Adulthood and Development Through Shared Mechanisms

“…Oscillations reflect cPVin task-dependent activity and recruitment of greater numbers of cPVins during sensory learning (Gotts et al, 2012;Brunet et al, 2014;Ainsworth et al, 2016). Changes in gamma activity are critical for learning rules, such as during operant conditioning (Caroni, 2015;Lintas et al, 2021). Moreover, they are necessary for updating cortical responses when there is a mismatch between the history of stimuli-salience association and the new rules of the rules of sensory learning (Cho et al, 2020).…”

Slow or sudden: Re-interpreting the learning curve for modern systems neuroscience

“…This is not to say that the field has been blind to this issue; rather, the purpose of many learning studies, particularly those interested in neural mechanisms, has motivated these approaches. For example, lesion or mutation studies aim to isolate the brain regions involved in learning, and thus necessitate group comparisons ( Bey et al, 2018 ; Cheung and Cardinal, 2005 ; Corbit et al, 2001 , Corbit et al, 2003 ; Featherstone and McDonald, 2004 ; Lintas et al, 2021 ). The desire for reproducibility and reduced variability in such comparisons has likely driven the usage of group and session-based averaging of the learning curves.…”