Source Paper
Responses of tonically active neurons in the primate's striatum undergo systematic changes during behavioral sensorimotor conditioning
T Aosaki, H Tsubokawa, A Ishida, K Watanabe, AM Graybiel et al.
Journal of Neuroscience • 1994
Pavlovian Conditioning Task
Objective: To test for response plasticity in striatal neurons of macaque monkeys undergoing Pavlovian conditioning by recording from tonically active neurons (TANs) during acquisition of a classical conditioning task associating a click sound with juice reward delivery
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Equipment2
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Materials2
Software1
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Protocol Steps
Baseline neural recording before conditioning
Record extracellular activity from tonically active neurons (TANs) in the striatum of alert behaving macaque monkeys before conditioning begins
Note: Approximately 17% of TANs responded to clicks at the start before conditioning
View evidence from paper
“The activities of 858 TANs were recorded extracellularly from the striatum in alert behaving macaque monkeys before, during, and after the acquisition of a classical conditioning task”
Pavlovian conditioning training
Train monkeys to associate click sound with juice reward delivery. Present click stimulus simultaneously with juice reward delivered on a spoon. Monkeys learn to lick in response to the click
Note: Almost no licks triggered by cues at start of training. By fifth day, more than 90% of licks were triggered. Values near 100% for remainder of 3 week period
View evidence from paper
“Two monkeys were trained to lick reward juice delivered on a spoon simultaneously with the presentation of a click. Almost no licks were triggered by the cues at the start of training, but by the fifth day more than 90% of licks were triggered, and values were near 100% for the remainder of the 3 week training period”
Concurrent neural recording during conditioning
Continue extracellular recording from striatal TANs throughout the 3-week conditioning training period to monitor changes in neural responsiveness to the click stimulus
Note: Numbers of responding TANs gradually increased during training. By end of training, 51.3-73.5% of TANs recorded became responsive to clicks
View evidence from paper
“During training, the numbers of responding TANs gradually increased, so that by the end of training more than 50–70% of the TANs recorded (51.3–73.5%) became responsive to the clicks”
Post-conditioning neural recording
Record from striatal TANs after completion of the 3-week conditioning training period to assess retention of conditioned neural responses
Note: TANs retained responsiveness after overtraining and after 4 week intermission in training
View evidence from paper
“TANs retained such responsiveness after overtraining, and also after a 4 week intermission in training”
Stimulus switching task
Train monkey to receive rewards in relation to a new conditioning stimulus while recording from TANs to assess their ability to switch sensory responses
Note: TANs were capable of switching their sensory response to the new stimulus
View evidence from paper
“When the monkey was trained to receive rewards in relation to a new conditioning stimulus, TANs were capable of switching their sensory response to the new stimulus”
Histological reconstruction
Perform histological analysis to determine anatomical location of recorded TANs that became responsive during conditioning
Note: TANs that became responsive were broadly distributed in dorsal half to two-thirds of caudate nucleus and putamen over large anteroposterior span
View evidence from paper
“Histological reconstruction showed that the TANs that became responsive were broadly distributed in the region of striatum explored, which included the dorsal half to two-thirds of the caudate nucleus and putamen over a large anteroposterior span”