Influence of spatial information on responses of tonically active neurons in the monkey striatum

Previous studies have demonstrated that tonically active neurons (TANs) in the primate striatum play an important role in the detection of rewarding events. However, the influence of the spatial features of stimuli or actions required to obtain reward remains unclear. Here, we examined the activity of TANs in the striatum of monkeys trained to make spatially directed movements elicited by visual stimuli presented ipsilaterally or contralaterally to the moving arm. Among 181 neurons responding to the trigger stimulus, 127 (70%) were nonselective for stimulus location and 54 (30%) responded to only one location of the stimulus. Most of the selective responses (63%) occurred when the stimulus was presented contralaterally to the moving arm. To examine whether TAN responses are related to the location of the stimulus or to the direction of the movement, we tested a subset of the trigger-responsive neurons (n = 44) in a condition that elicited reaching toward or away from the stimulus. By comparing TAN activity between the two conditions, we found that half of the responses can be interpreted as being related to the location of the stimulus, one quarter to the direction of movement, and one quarter to the context in which stimulus-movement combination occurs. These results demonstrate that TANs are not limited to motivational processing, but may play a role in the processing of spatial attributes of stimulus and/or movement as well. These response properties suggest that TANs are involved in the flexible shifting of motor responses during spatially directed behavior.