But then, we compared mapping from neural activity to movement – and saw a big difference!

🤩

While neurons in both cases represented ongoing movement, they did so in radically different ways.

What could explain this change in function? We next turned to neural activity, recording from DLS neurons from animals in both contexts.

Maybe neurons were more active in the task, or activity was more locked to behavior?

At first, we saw a whole lotta nothing that screamed “big difference”.

🤨

But even with the latest and greatest tracking and behavioral quantification, we couldn’t find effects of lesioning DLS 😶‍🌫️. This is a big contrast to the huge effect in the task. This suggests DLS is not an essential part of the motor control machinery, but specializing in shaping learned behaviors.

We first examined DLS function by taking it away (via lesion).

We already know DLS impacts learned movements – but what about innate ones?

Prior work has implicated DLS, but to know for sure, we needed to track these behaviors in detail. And thanks to advances in tracking, this is now easy-peasy!

To examine this, we considered two behavioral contexts on each end of the learning spectrum:
(1) free exploration, where a rat goes about their business expressing innate behaviors like rearing
(2) task execution, where the rat expresses a sequence of arm movements it learned to solve a lever task

We focused on changes within the sensorimotor striatum – also called dorsolateral striatum (DLS) in rats – which is a big input region in the basal ganglia.

We know DLS is required for learned skills: if a rat learns a new motor skill and then you mess with DLS, they can no longer execute it.

But then, we compared mapping from neural activity to movement – and saw a big difference!

🤩

While neurons in both cases represented ongoing movement, they did so in radically different ways.

What could explain this change in function? We next turned to neural activity, recording from DLS neurons from rats in both contexts.

Maybe neurons were more active in the task, or activity was more locked to behavior?

At first, we saw a whole lotta nothing that screamed “big difference”.

🤨

But even with the latest and greatest tracking and behavioral quantification, we couldn’t find effects of lesioning DLS 😶‍🌫️. This is a big contrast to the huge effect in the task. This suggests DLS is not an essential part of the motor control machinery, but specializing in shaping learned behaviors.

We first examined DLS function by taking it away (via lesion).

We already know DLS impacts learned movements – but what about innate ones?

Prior work has implicated DLS, but to know for sure, we needed to track these behaviors in detail. And thanks to advances in tracking, this is now easy-peasy!

We considered two behavioral contexts on each end of the learning spectrum:

(1) free exploration, where a rat goes about their business expressing innate behaviors like rearing and grooming

(2) task execution, where the rat expresses a sequence of arm movements it learned to solve a lever task

We focused on changes within the sensorimotor striatum – also called dorsolateral striatum (DLS) in rats – which is a big input region in the basal ganglia.

We know DLS is required for learned skills: if a rat learns a new motor skill and then you mess with DLS, they can no longer execute it

Could I be added please? Adding the most recent spikes pic I found in my camera roll :)