RESUMO
Motor skills improve with practice, requiring outcomes to be evaluated against ever-changing performance benchmarks, yet it remains unclear how performance error signals are computed. Here, we show that the songbird ventral pallidum (VP) is required for song learning and sends diverse song timing and performance error signals to the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Viral tracing revealed inputs to VP from auditory and vocal motor thalamus, auditory and vocal motor cortex, and VTA. Our findings show that VP circuits, commonly associated with hedonic functions, signal performance error during motor sequence learning.
Assuntos
Prosencéfalo Basal/fisiologia , Dopamina/metabolismo , Vias Neurais/fisiologia , Neurônios/fisiologia , Área Tegmentar Ventral/fisiologia , Acelerometria , Potenciais de Ação/fisiologia , Animais , Biofísica , Toxina da Cólera/metabolismo , Estimulação Elétrica/efeitos adversos , Tentilhões , Proteínas de Fluorescência Verde/genética , Proteínas de Fluorescência Verde/metabolismo , Comportamento Imitativo/fisiologia , Masculino , Movimento/fisiologia , Fosfopiruvato Hidratase/metabolismo , Tempo de Reação/fisiologia , Fatores de Tempo , Transdução Genética , Área Tegmentar Ventral/citologia , Área Tegmentar Ventral/metabolismo , VigíliaRESUMO
Many behaviors are learned through trial and error by matching performance to internal goals. Yet neural mechanisms of performance evaluation remain poorly understood. We recorded basal ganglia-projecting dopamine neurons in singing zebra finches as we controlled perceived song quality with distorted auditory feedback. Dopamine activity was phasically suppressed after distorted syllables, consistent with a worse-than-predicted outcome, and was phasically activated at the precise moment of the song when a predicted distortion did not occur, consistent with a better-than-predicted outcome. Error response magnitude depended on distortion probability. Thus, dopaminergic error signals can evaluate behaviors that are not learned for reward and are instead learned by matching performance outcomes to internal goals.