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Reinforcement waves as a mechanism for discontinuous learning

View ORCID ProfileGautam Reddy
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.06.490910
Gautam Reddy
1Physics & Informatics Laboratories, NTT Research, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA
2Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
3NSF-Simons Center for Mathematical & Statistical Analysis of Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
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  • For correspondence: gautam_nallamala@fas.harvard.edu
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Abstract

Problem-solving and reasoning involve mental exploration and navigation in sparse relational spaces. A physical analogue is spatial navigation in structured environments such as a network of burrows. Recent experiments with mice navigating a labyrinth show a sharp discontinuity during learning, corresponding to a distinct moment of ‘sudden insight’ when mice figure out long, direct paths to the goal. This discontinuity is seemingly at odds with reinforcement learning (RL), which involves a gradual build-up of a value signal during learning. Here, we show that biologically-plausible RL rules combined with persistent exploration generically exhibit discontinuous learning. In structured environments, positive feedback from learning generates a traveling ‘reinforcement wave’. The discontinuity occurs when the wave reaches the starting point. Task difficulty and the learning rule alter its profile and speed, which are determined by the nonlinear dynamics between the nose and bulk of the wave. Predictions explain existing data and motivate specific experiments to isolate the phenomenon. Additionally, we characterize the exact learning dynamics of various RL rules for a complex sequential task.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 06, 2022.
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Reinforcement waves as a mechanism for discontinuous learning
Gautam Reddy
bioRxiv 2022.05.06.490910; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.06.490910
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Reinforcement waves as a mechanism for discontinuous learning
Gautam Reddy
bioRxiv 2022.05.06.490910; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.06.490910

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