Planning can be defined as action selection that leverages an internal model of the outcomes likely to follow each possible action. Its neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here we adapt recent advances from human research for rats, presenting for the first time an animal task that produces many trials of planned behavior per session, making multitrial rodent experimental tools available to study planning. We use part of this toolkit to address a perennially controversial issue in planning: the role of the dorsal hippocampus. Although prospective hippocampal representations have been proposed to support planning, intact planning in animals with damaged hippocampi has been repeatedly observed. Combining formal algorithmic behavioral analysis with muscimol inactivation, we provide causal evidence directly linking dorsal hippocampus with planning behavior. Our results and methods open the door to new and more detailed investigations of the neural mechanisms of planning in the hippocampus and throughout the brain.

中文翻译：

---

背侧海马有助于基于模型的规划。

计划可以定义为行动选择，它利用可能遵循每个可能行动的结果的内部模型。它的神经机制仍然知之甚少。在这里，我们改编了人类对大鼠研究的最新进展，首次提出了一项动物任务，该任务在每个会话中产生许多计划行为试验，使多试验啮齿动物实验工具可用于研究计划。我们使用该工具包的一部分来解决规划中一个长期存在争议的问题：背侧海马体的作用。尽管已提出前瞻性海马表示来支持计划，但已反复观察到海马受损动物的完整计划。将正式算法行为分析与蝇蕈醇失活相结合，我们提供了直接将背侧海马体与计划行为联系起来的因果证据。我们的结果和方法为对海马和整个大脑中规划的神经机制进行新的和更详细的研究打开了大门。