The brain will also "one area with two purposes". The neurons that control habit also learn new behaviors.

Recently, in a study of rodents, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai discovered that the part of the brain traditionally thought to control old habits may also be learning new behaviors.

The striatum is located deep in the brain.

The research team put hungry rodents in a special cage and trained them to obtain food by pressing the operating lever of the dispenser

Two days later, the researchers put these animals back in the cages for training experiments to test the learning effect

During the experiment, the researchers used c-Fos mapping (c-Fos mapping) technology to detect neural activity in the brains of these animals

▲Several regions of the mouse brain striatum (picture source: reference [1])

To test this, the researchers injected anisomycin into each area, which prevents the cells from making the proteins needed for long-term memory storage

The research team was very surprised

Further experiments also support this view

When the researchers looked closely at this area, they found that learning behavior may be controlled by two adjacent, counteractive neural circuits that respond to the neurotransmitter dopamine

▲The D1-MSNs circuit focuses on memorizing new behaviors, and the D2-MSNs circuit is responsible for the learned habits (picture source: reference [1])

In a circuit, D1 receptor medium spiny neurons (D1-MSNs) immediately increase in activity after training, and inhibiting these nerve cells will hinder animal behavioral learning

Note: The original text has been deleted

Reference materials:

[1] Smith, ACW, et, al.

[2] Old Habit-Controlling Neurons May Also Help the Brain Learn New Tricks.

[3] Part of Brain That Controls Habits Found Responsible for Encoding New Learnings, Neuroscience Research Reveals.