Spiking activity in the posterior striatum is linked to distinct behaviour and tone presentation in awake mice

Poster presented in the FENS Virtual Forum 2020 - Poster #2398.

Spiking activity in the posterior striatum is linked to distinct behavior and tone presentation in awake mice

Cecília Pardo-Bellver¹, Gergő Attila Nagy¹, Dániel Magyar¹, Norbert Hájos¹.

1. Laboratory of Network Neurophysiology, Institute of Experimental Medicine, Budapest, Hungary.

Posterior striatum (or the tail of the striatum) receives inputs from various cortical structures and thalamic nuclei, e.g. the auditory cortex and posterior thalamus, respectively. Recent studies have begun to elucidate the role of this striatal region in auditory discrimination or active avoidance, however our knowledge how it contributes to neural processes is still very limited. To get deeper insights into the function of the posterior striatum, we analysed the spiking activity of individual neurons in freely moving and head-fixed mice performing electrophysiological recordings with tetrodes or silicon probes.

We observed that appr. 40% of the single units increased their spiking associated with the behaviour of the animal. For instance, we found neurons whose activity was linked to exploration/movement (18.42%), resting (15.79%), grooming (3.95%) or licking (1.32%). In addition, the firing rate of some neurons was also increased upon presentation of sensory stimuli such as sound delivery (52.17%). These neurons generally increased their firing in response to any sound, but a small number was activated to either white noise or pure tone. Nevertheless, the majority of neurons in the posterior striatum were tonically active and did not change their firing rate neither as a result of the behaviour of the animal nor in response to external stimuli.

Our data show that the activity of a large portion of posterior striatal neurons is linked to different behaviours and to delivery sensory stimuli, suggesting that neural circuits comprising the posterior striatum may be involved in shifting behavioural actions controlled by environmental inputs.