Emergence of stable striatal D1R and D2R neuronal ensembles with distinct firing sequence during motor learning

The dorsolateral striatum (DLS) is essential for motor and procedure learning, but the role of DLS spiny projection neurons (SPNs) of direct and indirect pathways, as marked, respectively, by D1 and D2 receptor (D1R and D2R) expression, remains to be clarified. Long-term two-photon calcium imaging o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2019-05, Vol.116 (22), p.11038-11047
Main Authors: Sheng, Meng-jun, Lu, Di, Shen, Zhi-ming, Poo, Mu-ming
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biological Sciences
Calcium
Calcium imaging
Corpus Striatum - cytology
Corpus Striatum - diagnostic imaging
Corpus Striatum - physiology
Dopamine D2 receptors
Emergence
Firing pattern
Learning
Learning - physiology
Mice
Motor skill learning
Motor Skills - physiology
Neostriatum
Neurons
Neurons - cytology
Neurons - metabolism
PNAS Plus
Pushing
Receptors, Dopamine D1 - chemistry
Receptors, Dopamine D1 - metabolism
Receptors, Dopamine D2 - chemistry
Receptors, Dopamine D2 - metabolism
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Summary:The dorsolateral striatum (DLS) is essential for motor and procedure learning, but the role of DLS spiny projection neurons (SPNs) of direct and indirect pathways, as marked, respectively, by D1 and D2 receptor (D1R and D2R) expression, remains to be clarified. Long-term two-photon calcium imaging of the same neuronal population during mouse learning of a cued lever-pushing task revealed a gradual emergence of distinct D1R and D2R neuronal ensembles that reproducibly fired in a sequential manner, with more D1R and D2R neurons fired during the lever-pushing period and intertrial intervals (ITIs), respectively. This sequential firing pattern was specifically associated with the learned motor behavior, because it changed markedly when the trained mice performed other cued motor tasks. Selective chemogenetic silencing of D1R and D2R neurons impaired the initiation of learned motor action and suppression of erroneous lever pushing during ITIs, respectively. Thus, motor learning involves reorganization of DLS neuronal activity, forming stable D1R and D2R neuronal ensembles that fired sequentially to regulate different aspects of the learned behavior.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1901712116