Strategies of the aged brain to produce action sequences

The acquisition of motor skills involves implementing action sequences that increase task efficiency while reducing cognitive loads. This learning capacity depends on specific cortico-basal ganglia circuits that are affected by normal ageing. Here, combining a series of novel behavioural tasks with extensive neuronal mapping and targeted cell manipulations in mice, we explored how ageing of cortico-basal ganglia networks alters the microstructure of action throughout sequence learning. We found that, after extended training, aged mice produced shorter actions and displayed squeezed automatic behaviours characterised by ultrafast oligomeric action chunks that correlated with deficient reorganisation of corticostriatal activity. Chemogenetic disruption of a striatal subcircuit in young mice reproduced age-related within-sequence features, and the introduction of an action-related feedback cue temporarily restored normal sequence structure in aged mice. Our results reveal static properties of aged cortico-basal ganglia networks that introduce temporal limits to action automaticity, something that can compromise procedural learning in ageing.

Matamales M, Skrbis Z, Bailey MR, Balsam PD, Balleine BW, Götz J, Bertran-Gonzalez J (2017) A corticostriatal deficit promotes temporal distortion of automatic action in ageingElife 6, e29908. [Journal Article]  

GRANT FUNDING
Our work is currently supported by the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Tourette Association of America and UNSW. Click for details

RESEARCH ETHICS & SAFETY
All experimental procedures are approved by the Animal Care and Ethics Commitee and the Gene Technology Research Commitee at UNSW.

CC LICENSE
Except where otherwise noted, NeuroModuLab.org by J.Bertran-Gonzalez & M. Matamales is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.