Motor Learning Leads to Modifications of Gene Expression Profile in M1 Astrocytes

While motor cortex is crucial for the learning of precise and reliable movements, whether astrocytes contribute to its plasticity and function during motor learning is unknown. Here we report that primary motor cortex (M1) astrocytes in mice show gene expression changes associated with learning a cued lever-push task, including changes in glutamate transport genes Wild-type mice were water restricted and then trained to perform a cued lever push task (Peters et al., 2014) in which a lever press beyond a set threshold following trial start was rewarded with a water drop. We compared transcriptomic profiles of astrocytes isolated from the M1 cortex of mice trained for only three days (novice mice) or fully trained (expert mice) to the transcriptominc profile of untrained, naive mice.