Cell Reports: Neural Mechanism of Striatum Regulating Motor Function

The basal ganglia are found in all vertebrates and consist of a series of nuclei extending from the forebrain to the midbrain.

Because licking is a rhythmic fine movement with a time accuracy of 100 milliseconds, in order to explore the above problems, Yao Haishan's research team trained head-fixed mice to perform autonomous licking behavioral tasks, combined with optogenetic manipulation and electrophysiology Record and study the activity characteristics and functions of D1-MSNs and D2-MSNs in this behavior in the ventrolateral striatum ( VLS ) , and how their activities regulate the firing rate of SNr neurons .

The research team found that suppressing VLS on the second-level time scale reduced the number of licks in the licking sequence and the rate of licking, but did not change the licking rhythm

The study shows that the direct and indirect pathways of striatal neurons have different regulatory effects on movement on the second and hundred millisecond time scales, and they also antagonistically regulate the activity of the basal ganglia output nucleus neurons.

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