LA JOLLA\u2014Driving to work, typing an email or playing a round of golf\u2014people perform actions such as these throughout the day. But neuroscientists are still unsure how the brain orchestrates complex actions or switches to a new action\u2014behaviors that are impaired in disorders such as Parkinson’s disease or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). <\/p>\n
Now, Salk researchers have resolved a longstanding scientific debate about how behavior is organized in the brain. Led by Associate Professor Xin Jin<\/a>, the team discovered that learned behavior is organized in a hierarchy with multiple levels of control, offering possible new therapeutic targets for disorders that involve an inability to control one’s actions. The work, which appeared in the journal Zelle<\/a><\/em> on June 28, 2018, utilized mice trained to perform complex action sequences to make the discovery.<\/p>\n