Topic: habit formation

Motor learning, skill-learning or habit formation share conceptual similarities, but it is debated how much biology these processes have in common. There is genetic evidence linking motor learning and habit formation in flies, song-learning in birds and language acquisition in humans to an evolutionary conserved operant self-learning process. Here we show different biological manipulations of Drosophila that all enhance motor learning. Mutations in genes involved in classical conditioning, such as rutabaga or radish, enhance motor learning. Overexpression of an operant learning gene, atypical

Flexibility to changing environments is vital for survival and daily functioning. Impaired flexibility is a feature of many pathological conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia, which result in a dissociation between actions and goals. The prevailing theory is that goal-directed actions support flexible behaviour, and impaired flexibility results from habit formation due to extended training, also called overtraining, whereby responding becomes less dependent on outcome value (e.g., compulsive responding).This dual-system theory suggests that overtraining results