Ventral pallidum regulates the default mode network, controlling transitions between internally and externally guided behavior.

ABSTRACT: Daily life requires transitions between performance of well-practiced, automatized behaviors reliant upon internalized representations and behaviors requiring external focus. Such transitions involve differential activation of the default mode network (DMN), a group of brain areas associated with inward focus. We asked how optogenetic modulation of the ventral pallidum (VP), a subcortical DMN node, impacts task switching between internally to externally guided lever-pressing behavior in the rat. Excitation of the VP dramatically compromised acquisition of an auditory discrimination task, trapping animals in a DMN state of automatized internally focused behavior and impairing their ability to direct attention to external sensory stimuli. VP inhibition, on the other hand, facilitated task ac

SUBMITTER: Klaassen AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8433530 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature