Persistence is driven by a prefrontal motor circuit

Persistence provides a long-lasting effect on actions, including avoiding predators and storing energy, and hence is crucial for the survival (Adolphs and Anderson, 2018). However, how the brain loads persistence on movements is unknown. Here, we demonstrate that being persistent is determined at the initial phase of movement, and this persistency will be sustained until the terminal signaling. The neural coding of persistent movement phases (initial or terminal) is independent from the judgement (i.e. valence) (Li et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2018) upon the external stimuli. Next, we identify a group of dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) motor cortex projecting (MP) neurons (Wang and Sun, 2021), which encodes the initial phase of a persistent movement rather than the valence. Inactivation of dmPFC MP neurons impairs the initiation of persistency and reduce the neural activity in the insular and motor cortex. Finally, a MP network-based computational model suggests that an intact, successive sensory stimulus acts as a triggering signal to direct the initiation of persistent movements. These findings reveal a neural mechanism that transforms the brain state from neutral to persistent during a movement.