Dynamic Patterns of Cortical Activation During Different Types of Learning Tasks and Unpredictable Situations

Abstract

It is commonly accepted that associative learning is able to evoke more-or-less stable changes in synaptic weights in selected cortical and subcortical sites. It has also been shown during classical eye blink conditioning that these changes depend on the specific and timed activation of multiple hippocampal synaptic contacts, evoking a precise map of synaptic-learning states. However, a still-open question is whether synapses included in the intrinsic hippocampal circuit, and those involved in its main inputs and outputs, present similar changing rates in synaptic strength and configure a coherent map of functional states, when the tools of operant conditioning are used to modify a well-defined sequence of behaviors of the experimental animals. Results strongly suggest that a functional hypercube of dynamic spectral maps and multisynaptic state functions relating the acquisition of new motor and cognitive skills and the underlying synaptic plasticity could be generated for different types of associative learning tasks and/or unpredictable situations.