Estimating the hidden learning representations

Successful adaptation relies on the ability to learn the consequence of our actions in different environments. However, understanding the neural bases of this ability still represents one of the great challenges of system neuroscience. In fact, the neuronal plasticity changes occurring during learning cannot be fully controlled experimentally and their evolution is hidden. Our approach is to provide hypotheses about the structure and dynamics of the hidden plasticity changes using behavioral learning theory. In fact, behavioral models of animal learning provide testable predictions about the hidden learning representations by formalizing their relation with the observables of the experiment (stimuli, actions and outcomes). Thus, we can understand whether and how the predicted learning processes are represented at the neural level by estimating their evolution and correlating them with neural data. Here, we present a bayesian model approach to estimate the evolution of the internal learning representations from the observations of the experiment (state estimation), and to identify the set of models' parameters (parameter estimation) and the class of behavioral model (model selection) that are most likely to have generated a given sequence of actions and outcomes. More precisely, we use Sequential Monte Carlo methods for state estimation and the maximum likelihood principle (MLP) for model selection and parameter estimation. We show that the method recovers simulated trajectories of learning sessions on a single-trial basis and provides predictions about the activity of different categories of neurons that should participate in the learning process. By correlating the estimated evolutions of the learning variables, we will be able to test the validity of different models of instrumental learning and possibly identify the neural bases of learning.