Distinct roles of striatal direct and indirect pathways in value-based decision making

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Decision Making
• Computational Neuroscience

Background:

• The striatum plays a key role in value-based decision making.
• Understanding the coordinated function of its direct and indirect pathways in dynamic environments remains a challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the distinct roles of striatal direct and indirect pathways in decision making.
• To examine how inactivating D1 receptor (D1R) and D2 receptor (D2R) expressing neurons impacts choice behavior in dynamic tasks.

Main Methods:

• Selective inactivation of D1R- and D2R-expressing dorsal striatal neurons in mice.
• Behavioral testing using a reversal task and a dynamic two-armed bandit task.
• Reinforcement learning model-based analysis of choice behavior.

Main Results:

• Inactivation of either pathway impaired performance in both tasks.
• D1R neuron inactivation selectively impaired value-dependent action selection.
• D2R neuron inactivation selectively impaired value learning.

Conclusions:

• Striatal direct and indirect pathways have differential contributions to value-based decision making.
• These pathways support distinct computational steps: action selection and value learning.