We report here studies to determine whether, and if so, how, the neuronal support for behavior depends on the number of training steps presented in the history of its formation. A training step is the formation of a new skill consisting of a sequence of behavioral acts whose execution leads to achievement of a result: receipt of food. Rats (Long Evans) were trained to an operant pedal-pressing food-procuring skill using two methods – with one or several stages – and the activity of individual neurons in the retrosplenial dysgranular area of the cortex was recorded. In the group of rats in which the skill was acquired in four steps (multistep), there were significantly more neurons specialized for approach and pedal-pressing (consistently activated during these acts) and the mean firing frequency of neurons with structured but not necessarily consistent activity in the learned behavior was greater; there were also more clusters combining cells with selectively increased activity in the same sets of behavioral acts. In animals trained in a single step, only two neurons specialized for approach and pedal-pressing were seen, though there were more cells with structured activity in behavior, these cells displaying maximum firing frequencies in these acts. Thus, the different number of stages in the history of learning the same operant skill was linked with significant differences in the relative number and pattern of activity of two categories of retrosplenial cortex (RC) neurons: those specialized relative to the acts of the learned behavior and cells with structured but variable activity.
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Translated from Zhurnal Vysshei Nervnoi Deyatel’nosti imeni I. P. Pavlova, Vol. 69, No. 5, pp. 601–617, September–October, 2019.
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Kuzina, E.A., Aleksandrov, Y.I. Characteristics of the Neuronal Support for Operative Behavior Formed by Mono- and Multistep Methods. Neurosci Behav Physi 50, 710–722 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-020-00959-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-020-00959-2