Opponent Control of Behavior by Dorsomedial Striatal Pathways Depends on Task Demands and Internal State
Authors: Scott S. Bolkan, Iris R. Stone, Lucas Pinto, Zoe C. Ashwood, Jorge M. Iravedra Garcia, Alison L. Herman, Priyanka Singh, Akhil Bandi, Julia Cox, Christopher A. Zimmerman, Jounhong Ryan Cho, Ben Engelhard, Sue A. Koay, Jonathan W. Pillow, Ilana B. Witten
Publication: NATURE NEUROSCIENCE IN PRESS 2021
A classic view of the striatum holds that activity in direct and indirect pathways oppositely modulates motor output. Whether this involves direct control of movement, or reflects a cognitive process underlying movement, has remained unresolved. Here we find that strong, opponent control of behavior by the two pathways of the dorsomedial striatum (DMS) depends on a task’s cognitive demands. Furthermore, a latent state model (a hidden markov model with generalized linear model observations) reveals that—even within a single task—the contribution of the two pathways to behavior is state-dependent. Specifically, the two pathways have large contributions in one of two states associated with a strategy of evidence accumulation, compared to a state associated with a strategy of repeating previous choices. Thus, both the cognitive demands imposed by a task, as well as the strategy that mice pursue within a task, determine whether DMS pathways provide strong and opponent control of behavior.