Can this be expanded to movement sequences not in the study??  ;-{Q}  Just
thought the headline was humorous...

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Meir Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: NIH news releases and news items [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of NIH OLIB (NIH/OD)
> Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 3:14 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: SCIENTISTS IDENTIFY BRAIN CIRCUITS RELATED TO THE INITIATION AND
> TERMINATION OF MOVEMENT SEQUENCES IN NIH-SUPPORTED STUDY
>
> U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
> NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH NIH News
> National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
> <http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/>
> For Immediate Release: Thursday, July 22, 2010
>
> CONTACT: NIAAA Press Office, 301-443-3860,
> <e-mail:[log in to unmask]<[log in to unmask]>
> >
>
> SCIENTISTS IDENTIFY BRAIN CIRCUITS RELATED TO THE INITIATION AND
> TERMINATION
> OF MOVEMENT SEQUENCES IN NIH-SUPPORTED STUDY
>
> In humans, throwing a ball, typing on a keyboard, or engaging in most other
> physical activities involves the coordination of numerous discrete
> movements
> that are organized as action sequences. Scientists at the National
> Institutes of Health and the Gulbenkian Institute in Portugal have
> identified brain activity in mice that can signal the initiation and
> termination of newly learned action sequences. The findings appear online
> today in the current issue of Nature.
>
> "This interesting report should advance our understanding of the
> neurobiology of movement disorders, and open new avenues of research for
> their treatment and prevention," says Kenneth R. Warren, Ph.D., acting
> director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA),
> part of the NIH.
>
> The study was conducted by Xin Jin, Ph.D. an investigator in the NIAAA
> Laboratory for Integrative Neuroscience, and Rui M. Costa, D.V.M, Ph.D.,
> principal investigator of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Program at the
> Gulbenkian Institute.  The researchers trained mice to press a lever
> exactly
> eight times to receive a sugar-water reward.  As the mice learned this
> task,
> the researchers monitored brain cell activity in the animals' basal
> ganglia,
> deep brain structures that are known to help start and control movement.
>
> "We recorded activity in the dorsal striatum and substantia nigra during
> the
> learning of novel action sequences," explained Dr. Jin.  "Although previous
> studies have reported changes in neural activity in these areas during
> movement, their role in the initiation and termination of newly learned
> action sequences has not been explored."
>
> Drs. Costa and Jin discovered that certain neurons in these regions
> exhibited a change in activity before the first lever press of a sequence,
> while other neurons showed a change in activity before the last press of a
> sequence.  They also noticed that this activity signaling the initiation
> and
> termination of each action sequence emerged during learning.
>
> The researchers then evaluated these circuits in mice that had been
> genetically manipulated to disrupt the development of the start and stop
> signals. The researchers found the manipulation had impaired the learning
> of
> the lever-pressing sequence.
>
> "Our findings demonstrate that as we learn novel action sequences, these
> basal ganglia circuits develop activity that signals the beginning and end
> of each sequence," says Dr. Costa. "These results could have important
> implications for disorders where these circuits degenerate, such as
> Parkinson's and Huntington's disease, in which the initiation and
> termination of voluntary movement sequences are impaired. More broadly,
> they
> are relevant for understanding how we learn and control the execution of
> behavioral sequences, which may impact disorders of action control like
> compulsivity."
>
> The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the
> National
> Institutes of Health, is the primary U.S. agency for conducting and
> supporting research on the causes, consequences, prevention, and treatment
> of alcohol abuse, alcoholism, and alcohol problems. NIAAA also disseminates
> research findings to general, professional, and academic audiences.
> Additional alcohol research information and publications are available at
> <www.niaaa.nih.gov>.
>
> The National Institutes of Health (NIH) -- The Nation's Medical Research
> Agency -- includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S.
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-- 


Kendall

An unreasonable man (but my wife says that's redundant!)

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.

-George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950

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