Koziol Knowledge and anticipation

Knowledge about all behavior and rewards derives sensorimotor anticipation. Sensorimotor action is never random at any level of phylogeny. Hence impaired suck action as infant is associated with developmental anomalies.  The brain does not develop for thought, it develops to allow necessary interactions with environment, that cause knowledge.  Anticipatory actions include knowledge about reward values.  Anticipation drives all behavior. 

 

Corticobasal ganglia connections serve a binding function in the basla ganglia and procedural memories are stored in the supplementary motor and premotor cortices.  Learning new motor programs depends on posterior sensory elements as well.   However, this system is slow.

 

Fronto cerebellar systems are anticipatory systems, and allow motor responses that bypass the slower systems that incorpoate the sensory systems. The cerebellum learns to predict or anticipate motor behaviors after repeated practices or behaviors.  With the exception of the inferotemoral regions, every cortical system has segregated reciprocal connections with the cerebellum.

 

Humans have unique reciprocal connections, that are not present in animals, between the prefrontal cortices and the dentate nuclei of the cerebellum.These are important to attention, learning and memory and other aspects of cognitive control.

 

The basal ganglia is an instrumental learning  mechanism that operates on the basis of reward value.  It is a motor, cognitive and emotional gating center that operates on the basis of reward outcomes.  They select activities with positive rewards and avoid ones with negative rewards.