CiNet Monthly Seminar

2019年11月6日（水）
16:00-17:00
会場： CiNet　1F　大会議室

“While you were sleeping – A hypothesis about off-line learning and the cerebellum”

Andrew Jackson
Newcastle University

Host : 羽倉 信宏（池谷 G）

Abstract:
Anecdotally, we know that a difficult problem can often be solved by ‘sleeping on it’, but the mechanisms of off-line learning are unclear. In this talk, I will discuss evidence from human behavioural experiments and wireless electrophysiological recording in non-human primates that suggests sleep-dependent performance gains derive from cerebellar forward models. Put simply, during the day we learn ‘if I do x, then y happens’, while in sleep we invert this to learn ‘if I want y to happen, then I should do x’. This mechanism may be supported by coupled spindle oscillations mediating information transfer via cerebello-thalamo-cortical pathways, and represents a powerful, computationally-efficient solution to problems inherent in model-free reinforcement learning. Finally, I will speculate that this hypothesis may link observed learning deficits and reduced spindle density in conditions linked to cerebellar dysfunction including schizophrenia and autism.