Grant: Project Grant

Perceptual learning (PL) is a process through which experience improves an organism's ability to sense and respond to stimuli in its environment. For example, repeated associations between a certain flower and the receipt of food will increase an animal's ability to discriminate that flower from others with similar characteristics. PL thus represents an intriguing form of adult plasticity that refines multiple neurobiological processes required to sense and respond to the world around us. For example, PL likely reflects improvements in a subject's ability to extract the most important stimulus features from the activity of their sensory neurons. PL also likely reflects changes in functional connectivity within and across brain networks responsible for converting sensory information into behavior. However, specific neurobiological mechanisms that support PL are poorly understood because it is typically studied in higher organisms where mechanistic studies are more constrained compared to more tractable model organisms such as mice. Here, we seek to identify how neuronal signals in brain areas that help convert sensory input into behavior are refined by PL. To do so, we will record neuronal activity in the brains of mice while they engage in a visual task where their ability to detect and respond to visual input improves systematically with experience. This proposal focuses on three distinct brain systems that each make distinct contributions to perception, sensorimotor control, and cognition. The data will reveal key insights into brain adaptations that help organisms optimize behavior with learning and experience. Beyond the immediate value for understanding fundamental brain operations that are essential for survival, delineating mechanisms that shape learning in adult brains could inspire novel approaches for restoring or rehabilitating brain functions that have been disrupted by injury, aging, or disease.