Shared striatal neurons exhibit context-specific dynamics for internally and externally driven actions.

ABSTRACT: Animals can initiate movements either in response to external cues or from internal drive, yet how the brain flexibly supports both remains unclear. Disorders such as Parkinson's disease disrupt these modes differently, suggesting distinct underlying mechanisms. Such differences could arise from specialized circuits dedicated to each action mode or from shared neuronal populations that shift their dynamics across contexts. To distinguish between these possibilities, we performed two-photon calcium imaging in the dorsolateral striatum as mice executed the same lever press either spontaneously or in response to a cue, enabling direct comparison of internally and externally triggered actions. Unsupervised clustering revealed subpopulations of neurons modulated during cue, movement, or post-ac

SUBMITTER: Klee JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12458481 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature