行動の神経回路制御に関する研究法の技術革新と再解釈

抄録

Empirical studies on behavior using animal models provide irreplaceable tools for dissecting intricate neural circuits into multiple output modules that concomitantly regulate segmented components of behavior. Recent technical advancement in the manipulation and measurement of neural cell/circuit activities in freely behaving animals allow us to bridge the gap between neural processes and behavior expression. While neural signals are processed on the second timescales, the nature of behavior is time-consuming effort to gain interaction with environmental stimuli for adaptation. Therefore, a bundle of neural activities cannot simply represent entire behavioral processes, but rather segmented behavior components. Hence, we must reconsider how such bundles compose total outputs forming functional set of behavior, and thus, how integrated behavior can be broken into neural modular components, such as sensory detection, element recognition, behavior drive, and action/movement execution, by neural activity timescale units. Our refined protocol on behavioral studies is more effective in terms of determining what we observe in animal behavior and how we interpret neuro behavior relationship for vital contribution to basic and translational studies.