Striatal network coordination tracks option value during probabilistic choice in pigeons

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Comparative Cognition
• Animal Behavior

Background:

• The striatum is crucial for value-based decision-making in mammals.
• Understanding avian striatal function provides insights into the evolution of decision-making.
• Network-level dynamics in the avian striatum during decision-making are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate striatal local field potential (LFP) network dynamics in pigeons during a probabilistic choice task.
• To determine if avian striatal network activity relates to learned value and choice strategy.
• To provide comparative evidence for functional analogies between avian and mammalian striatal processing.

Main Methods:

• Recorded 16-channel LFPs from the pigeon striatum during a probabilistic two-choice task.
• Employed computational modeling to analyze behavioral learning and choice strategies.
• Constructed functional brain networks using phase-locking values (PLV) to assess network coordination.

Main Results:

• Pigeons improved their choice accuracy and favored the advantageous option with training.
• Choice strategy shifted from immediate feedback reliance to Rescorla-Wagner reinforcement-learning (RW-RL) value updating.
• Striatal network coordination, particularly in the gamma band, increased with learning and correlated with RW-RL-estimated option value.

Conclusions:

• Avian striatal LFP network dynamics are associated with learned option value and value-guided choice.
• Network coordination evolves within trials and is modulated by choice and reward feedback.
• Findings suggest functional analogies between avian and mammalian striatal network dynamics in decision-making.