Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 5, 2026
11:20
Recording Single Neurons' Action Potentials from Freely Moving Pigeons Across Three Stages of Learning
Published on: June 2, 2014
Shared striatal neurons exhibit context-specific dynamics for internally and externally driven actions
Jan L Klee1, Sulekh Fernando-Peiris1, Sahil Suresh1
1Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA.
Science Advances
|July 29, 2026
Summary
The brain uses the same neurons to initiate movements whether triggered by external cues or internal drives. Neural activity patterns shift before movement, showing how the brain flexibly controls action initiation.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Systems Neuroscience
- Motor Control
Background:
- Movement initiation can be externally cued or internally driven, with distinct neural mechanisms potentially underlying these processes.
- Neurological disorders like Parkinson's disease differentially affect these modes, highlighting the need to understand their separate neural bases.
- It remains unclear whether distinct circuits or adaptable dynamics within shared neuronal populations support flexible movement initiation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how the brain flexibly supports movement initiation from both external cues and internal drives.
- To differentiate between specialized circuits and context-dependent dynamics in shared neuronal populations for movement control.
- To elucidate the neural coding principles governing flexible action initiation in the striatum.
Main Methods:
- Utilized two-photon calcium imaging in the dorsolateral striatum of mice performing a lever press task.
- Compared neural activity during cue-elicited versus spontaneously initiated movements.
- Employed unsupervised clustering to identify neuronal populations modulated by different task phases (cue, movement, post-action).
Main Results:
- Identified distinct neuronal populations modulated during cue, movement, and post-action periods.
- Demonstrated that the same neurons encode movement initiation across both contexts (cue vs. spontaneous).
- Revealed divergent population dynamics preceding movement onset, influenced by initiation context.
- Showed contributions from both D1- and D2-expressing spiny projection neurons, with D1-SPNs showing heightened activity during sensory stimulation.
Conclusions:
- Neural dynamics within a shared movement-encoding population are shaped by the context of movement initiation.
- The dorsolateral striatum employs a context-generalizable neural code for flexible movement initiation.
- This neural code supports the integration of internal drives and external cues for adaptive motor control.
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