预测性学习可以采用一种选择性的认知控制形式,根据学习提供的有关未来结果的信息,在行动之间进行选择。据推测,这种影响取决于大脑中的反馈回路,基底神经节通过该回路调节前额叶皮层的活动;然而,这种功能电路的直接证据已被证明是难以捉摸的。这里,使用认知控制的动物模型,我们发现,预测学习对决策的影响是由连接内侧腹侧苍白球和中背丘脑的抑制性反馈回路介导的,在选择过程中,通过减少抑制性小白蛋白中间神经元的激活,其激活导致眶额叶皮质的去抑制。因此,我们发现,对于这个函数,中背丘脑充当苍白球-皮层中继,通过它预测学习控制动作选择,这对于理解认知控制及其在各种精神疾病和成瘾中的变迁具有重要意义。
Predictive learning can engage a selective form of cognitive control that biases choice between actions based on information about future outcomes that the learning provides. This influence has been hypothesized to depend on a feedback circuit in the brain through which the basal ganglia modulate activity in the prefrontal cortex; however, direct evidence for this functional circuit has proven elusive. Here, using an animal model of cognitive control, we found that the influence of predictive learning on decision making is mediated by an inhibitory feedback circuit linking the medial ventral pallidum and the mediodorsal thalamus, the activation of which causes disinhibition of the orbitofrontal cortex via reduced activation of inhibitory parvalbumin interneurons during choice. Thus, we found that, for this function, the mediodorsal thalamus serves as a pallidal-cortical relay through which predictive learning controls action selection, which has important implications for understanding cognitive control and its vicissitudes in various psychiatric disorders and addiction.