| Many daily tasks involve expertise in the perception of specific sensory stimuli. Expertise in sensory perception is referred to as perceptual learning, which falls under the broad category of skill learning. For example, musicians learn to discriminate tones, surgeons learn to discriminate tissue types based on visual appearance, and radiologists interpret differences in gray level invisible to the layman?s eye. The acquisition of these fine-grained discriminations requires considerable practice, and is highly specific to the trained stimuli, but fortunately, the resulting expertise is maintained for many years following the training. Current theories suggest that perceptual skill learning involves a time-dependent process to which different sets of sensory areas contribute at different moments in time. Hence, to fully understand skill learning, it is necessary to study activity in ensembles of neurons in different sensory areas recorded simultaneously, and to study the interaction between these ensembles as a function of learning. This type of knowledge is essential to fully interpret the data coming from human studies in which brain activity is measured non-invasively (fMRI, EEG and MEG), and also forms the basis for molecularly oriented learning studies. Therefore, the proposed research aims to study neuronal interactions during visual skill learning in rhesus monkeys. Monkeys will be trained in an orientation discrimination task, while activity will be measured with multiple electrodes in areas V1, V2, and V4. Changes in individual neuronal activity will be assessed, as well as changes in communication among neurons within and across areas (by assessing temporal synchrony and coherence of spiking activity). We will be the first to track these neuronal changes throughout the learning process. The resulting body of evidence will provide invaluable new insights in processes underlying visual skill learning, and skill learning in general, and will help provide a solid theoretical basis for therapeutic applications. |
