Seminar "2D reaching motor adaptation mediated by basal ganglia"

Dear all,

Neural Computation Unit (Doya Unit) would like to invite you to a seminar as follows.

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Date: Tuesday, June 6
Time: 11:00-12:00
Venue: Meeting Room D015 - L1 Bldg

Speaker: Dr. Dmitrii Todorov, Georgia State University

Title: 2D reaching motor adaptation mediated by basal ganglia.

Abstract: It is widely accepted that the basal ganglia (BG) play a key role in action selection and reinforcement learning. However, despite considerable number of studies, the BG architecture and function are not completely understood. Relatively recently new evidence of BG involvement in certain "non-error based" motor adaptation tasks performed by human and primate subjects, has appeared. Our group has developed a detailed model of the system responsible for 2D reaching motor adaptation including BG as a reinforcement learning mechanism and a part of the cortex responsible the unsupervised learning.  The model includes sensory and premotor cortices, BG, a spinal cord network, and a virtual mechanical arm performing 2D reaching movements. Unlike previously existing models that work with a small pool of possible behavioral outcomes, ours can select a rewarded action from a potentially arbitrary large set of behaviors.

Given a specific goal-oriented motor task, the BG network through reinforcement learning constructs a behavior from an arbitrary number of basic actions represented by cortical activity patterns. Our study confirms that, with slight modifications, the classical two-pathway BG concept is consistent with results of previous studies, including non-error based motor adaptation experiments, pharmacological manipulations with BG nuclei, and functional deficits observed in BG-related motor disorders (Parkinson and Huntington diseases).

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We hope to see many of you.

Sincerely,
Emiko Asato
Neural Computation Unit