杜克大学医学院Richard Mooney团队取得一项新突破。他们报道了双重神经调节动力学是鸟鸣学习的基础。这一研究成果发表在2025年3月12日出版的国际学术期刊《自然》上。

在这里，研究小组展示了歌曲基底神经节中的多巴胺动态忠实地跟踪了青少年歌曲表演的学习质量。

此外，基底神经节中的多巴胺释放不仅受到与强化学习相关的中脑多巴胺神经元的输入驱动，还受到歌唱前运动输入的驱动，后者通过局部胆碱能信号在歌唱过程中提升多巴胺。尽管胆碱能和多巴胺能信号都是青少年歌曲学习所必需的，但只有多巴胺能跟踪歌曲表演的学习质量。因此，多巴胺动态在基底神经节编码的表现质量在自我指导，长期学习的自然行为。

据了解，虽然从理论上讲，响应外部强化的学习是由多巴胺信号驱动的，多巴胺信号编码了预期奖励和经验奖励之间的差异，但语言或数学表达的技能可以在没有外部强化的情况下学习。相反，自发地执行这些技能被认为是内在强化。多巴胺信号是否同样指导这些内在强化行为的学习尚不清楚。在幼年斑胸草雀向成年导师学习的过程中，成功的歌曲复制需要专门歌唱的基底神经节区域的多巴胺信号，这是一个自发的、内在强化的过程。

附：英文原文

Title: Dual neuromodulatory dynamics underlie birdsong learning

Author: Qi, Jiaxuan, Schreiner, Drew C., Martinez, Miles, Pearson, John, Mooney, Richard

Issue&Volume: 2025-03-12

Abstract: Although learning in response to extrinsic reinforcement is theorized to be driven by dopamine signals that encode the difference between expected and experienced rewards1,2, skills that enable verbal or musical expression can be learned without extrinsic reinforcement. Instead, spontaneous execution of these skills is thought to be intrinsically reinforcing3,4. Whether dopamine signals similarly guide learning of these intrinsically reinforced behaviours is unknown. In juvenile zebra finches learning from an adult tutor, dopamine signalling in a song-specialized basal ganglia region is required for successful song copying, a spontaneous, intrinsically reinforced process5. Here we show that dopamine dynamics in the song basal ganglia faithfully track the learned quality of juvenile song performance on a rendition-by-rendition basis. Furthermore, dopamine release in the basal ganglia is driven not only by inputs from midbrain dopamine neurons classically associated with reinforcement learning but also by song premotor inputs, which act by means of local cholinergic signalling to elevate dopamine during singing. Although both cholinergic and dopaminergic signalling are necessary for juvenile song learning, only dopamine tracks the learned quality of song performance. Therefore, dopamine dynamics in the basal ganglia encode performance quality during self-directed, long-term learning of natural behaviours.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08694-9

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08694-9