RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Dorsal hippocampus contributes to model-based planning
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 096594
DO 10.1101/096594
A1 Kevin J. Miller
A1 Matthew M. Botvinick
A1 Carlos D. Brody
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/30/096594.abstract
AB Planning can be defined as a process of action selection that leverages an internal model of the environment. Such models provide information about the likely outcomes that will follow each selected action, and their use is a key function underlying complex adaptive behavior. However, the neural mechanisms supporting this ability remain poorly understood. In the present work, we adapt for rodents recent advances from work on human planning, presenting for the first time a task for animals which produces many trials of planned behavior per session, allowing the experimental toolkit available for use in trial-by-trial tasks for rodents to be applied to the study of planning. We take advantage of one part of this toolkit to address a perennially controversial issue in planning research: the role of the dorsal hippocampus. Although prospective representations in the hippocampus have been proposed to support model-based planning, intact planning in hippocampally damaged animals has been observed in a number of assays. Combining formal algorithmic behavioral analysis with muscimol inactivation, we provide the first causal evidence directly linking dorsal hippocampus with planning behavior. The results reported, and the methods introduced, open the door to new and more detailed investigations of the neural mechanisms of planning, in the hippocampus and throughout the brain.