美国普林斯顿大学Carlos D. Brody和Chunyu A. Duan研究团队合作取得最新进展。他们揭示用于灵活感觉运动路径的丘脑环路。相关论文发表在2021年6月3日出版的《自然-神经科学》杂志上。
他们报告了一组大鼠中脑上丘 (SC)神经元，它们实例化了环境表征和运动选择之间的特定联系。此外，这些神经元比 SC 或额叶皮层中的其他神经元更早地对动物的选择进行编码，这表明它们的神经动力学主导了选择计算。光遗传学失活表明，环境编码期间的 SC 活动是选择行为所必需的，即使该选择行为对选择形成期间的失活具有稳健性。搜索与他们的实验结果匹配的 SC环路模型确定了关键环路预测，同时揭示了一些不必要的先验预期特征。他们的结果揭示了 SC 内在执行控制期间实现响应抑制和基于环境向量反转的环路机制。
据了解，基于环境的感觉运动路径由是执行控制的标志。大鼠的药理学失活表明SC参与了这一过程。但这是什么具体作用，什么环路机制支持它并不清楚。
附：英文原文
Title: Collicular circuits for flexible sensorimotor routing
Author: Chunyu A. Duan, Marino Pagan, Alex T. Piet, Charles D. Kopec, Athena Akrami, Alexander J. Riordan, Jeffrey C. Erlich, Carlos D. Brody
Issue&Volume: 2021-06-03
Abstract: Context-based sensorimotor routing is a hallmark of executive control. Pharmacological inactivations in rats have implicated the midbrain superior colliculus (SC) in this process. But what specific role is this, and what circuit mechanisms support it Here we report a subset of rat SC neurons that instantiate a specific link between the representations of context and motor choice. Moreover, these neurons encode animals’ choice far earlier than other neurons in the SC or in the frontal cortex, suggesting that their neural dynamics lead choice computation. Optogenetic inactivations revealed that SC activity during context encoding is necessary for choice behavior, even while that choice behavior is robust to inactivations during choice formation. Searches for SC circuit models matching our experimental results identified key circuit predictions while revealing some a priori expected features as unnecessary. Our results reveal circuit mechanisms within the SC that implement response inhibition and context-based vector inversion during executive control.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-021-00865-x
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-021-00865-x
Nature Neuroscience：《自然—神经科学》，创刊于1998年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：28.771
官方网址：https://www.nature.com/neuro/
投稿链接：https://mts-nn.nature.com/cgi-bin/main.plex
本期文章：《自然—神经科学》：Online/在线发表
