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Corticostriatal neurons in auditory cortex drive decisions during auditory discrimination

2013; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 497; Issue: 7450 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/nature12077

1476-4687

Petr Znamenskiy, Anthony M. Zador,

Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research

In an auditory frequency discrimination task in rats, channelrhodopsin-2-mediated stimulation of corticostriatal neurons biases decisions in the direction predicted by the frequency tuning of the stimulated neurons, whereas archaerhodopsin-3-mediated inactivation biases decisions in the opposite direction. Many studies have established how sounds are represented in the auditory cortex, but the processes by which that coded information is transformed into action are less well understood. Petr Znamenskiy and Anthony Zador study one output of auditory cortex — the projections to the striatum — and explore the consequences of changing the activity of these neurons on rats' perceptions in an auditory task. Optogenetically manipulating neuronal activity biased decisions in a manner consistent with the properties of the stimulated neurons, implicating corticostriatal activity in sensorimotor transformations. As cortical areas corresponding to all sensory modalities project to the striatum, this work also has implications beyond the auditory system. The neural pathways by which information about the acoustic world reaches the auditory cortex are well characterized, but how auditory representations are transformed into motor commands is not known. Here we use a perceptual decision-making task in rats to study this transformation. We demonstrate the role of corticostriatal projection neurons in auditory decisions by manipulating the activity of these neurons in rats performing an auditory frequency-discrimination task. Targeted channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2)1,2-mediated stimulation of corticostriatal neurons during the task biased decisions in the direction predicted by the frequency tuning of the stimulated neurons, whereas archaerhodopsin-3 (Arch)3-mediated inactivation biased decisions in the opposite direction. Striatal projections are widespread in cortex and may provide a general mechanism for the control of motor decisions by sensory cortex.