The ventral striatum is involved with what kinds of learning?

Leaders: Ann Kelley and Barry Everitt.


ABSTRACT:

Although the ventral striatum has been implicated in reward processes and motivation for three decades, it is only relatively recently that specific questions regarding learning and plasticity have been applied to this structure. The specific aim of the behavioral focus group is to develop and discuss issues related to the role of this structure in learning; that is, in associative processes per se on which learning depends and in the acquisition of goal-directed behaviors. Part of this renewed interest in learning properties of the striatum has been generated by converging data from molecular biological investigations of addiction as well as from cellular models of learning and memory. Our goal is to understand the nature of learning subserved by the ventral striatum. There are several principal areas of inquiry and interest. One question is whether the ventral striatum actually mediates associative processes, or rather integrates associative information from various input regions and conveys this to the motor system, acting more preferentially on response selection.

A second major conceptual area focuses on the nature of the input to ventral striatum, from corticolimbic regions clearly involved in learning, such as amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus. Do these various complex inputs contribute different types of information to one learning process, or are there parallel circuits mediating different types of learning? Moreover, there is considerable debate as to the nature of stimulus and response processing by ventral striatum in relation to appetitively versus aversively motivated behavior, particularly with regard to the amygdalo--striatal pathway. Clearly most work has implicated the ventral striatum in reward and appetitive functions. Is this a preferential or unique role or have we not yet developed appropriate strategies for evaluating the ventral striatum in aversive functions?

Members: Michela Gallagher, Cyriel Pennartz, Laura Peoples, Anthony Phillips, John Parkinson, John Salamone.