RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Multidimensional encoding of movement and contextual variables by rat globus pallidus neurons during a novel environment exposure task
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.08.01.454624
DO 10.1101/2021.08.01.454624
A1 Noam D. Peer
A1 Hagar G. Yamin
A1 Dana Cohen
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/08/02/2021.08.01.454624.abstract
AB The basal ganglia (BG) play a critical role in a variety of functions that are essential for animal survival. Information from different cortical areas propagates through the BG in anatomically segregated circuits along the parallel direct and indirect pathways. We examined how the globus pallidus (GP), a central nucleus within the indirect pathway, encodes input from the motor and cognitive domains. We chronically recorded and analyzed neuronal activity in the GP of rats engaged in a novel environment exposure task. GP neurons displayed multidimensional responses to movement and contextual information. A model predicting single unit activity required many task-related variables, thus confirming the multidimensionality of GP neurons. In addition, populations of GP neurons, but not single units, reliably encoded the animals’ locomotion speed and the environmental novelty. We posit that the GP independently processes information from different domains, effectively compresses it and collectively conveys it to successive nuclei.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.