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A GPCR-based ‘memory’ process mediates the influence of predictive learning on choice between competing courses of action.

The cognitive control of action reflects our ability to extract and encode causal relationships from the environment to guide choice between different courses of action. To investigate this process at both a psychological and a neural level we have adopted a model of cognitive control in rodents in which the influence of predictive learning on action selection is assessed in an instrumental choice situation: the Pavlovian-instrumental transfer paradigm. Over the last several years we have systematically investigated the core neural systems and cellular circuits that mediate transfer effects of various kinds and, in this presentation, I will describe: the behavioural background to this research project; the psychological theories that best account for these kinds of effect; and our most recent findings at a neural level, focusing on neurochemistry of amygdala-striatal interactions and specific modulatory processes within the striatum that enhance motor output via a pallido-thalamic feedback circuit. As a consequence of this latter research, we have uncovered what appears to be a form of GPCR-based ‘memory' process in the nucleus accumbens that encodes specific Pavlovian associations for later use in the control of choice between actions.