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The Journal of Neuroscience, March 11, 2009, 29(10):3148-3159; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5206-08.2009

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Dynamic Encoding of Action Selection by the Medial Striatum

Eyal Yaacov Kimchi^1,2 and Mark Laubach^1,3

¹The John B. Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut 06519, and ²Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program and ³Department of Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06520

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Mark Laubach, The John B. Pierce Laboratory, 290 Congress Avenue, New Haven, CT 06519. Email: mlaubach{at}jbpierce.org

Successful foragers respond flexibly to environmental stimuli. Behavioral flexibility depends on a number of brain areas that send convergent projections to the medial striatum, such as the medial prefrontal cortex, orbital frontal cortex, and amygdala. Here, we tested the hypothesis that neurons in the medial striatum are involved in flexible action selection, by representing changes in stimulus–reward contingencies. Using a novel Go/No-go reaction-time task, we changed the reward value of individual stimuli within single experimental sessions. We simultaneously recorded neuronal activity in the medial and ventral parts of the striatum of rats. The rats modified their actions in the task after the changes in stimulus–reward contingencies. This was preceded by dynamic modulations of spike activity in the medial, but not the ventral, striatum. Our results suggest that the medial striatum biases animals to collect rewards to potentially valuable stimuli and can rapidly influence flexible behavior.

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Received Oct. 20, 2008; revised Jan. 25, 2009; accepted Jan. 26, 2009.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Mark Laubach, The John B. Pierce Laboratory, 290 Congress Avenue, New Haven, CT 06519. Email: mlaubach{at}jbpierce.org

This article has been cited by other articles:

				Y. Kubota, J. Liu, D. Hu, W. E. DeCoteau, U. T. Eden, A. C. Smith, and A. M. Graybiel Stable Encoding of Task Structure Coexists With Flexible Coding of Task Events in Sensorimotor Striatum J Neurophysiol, October 1, 2009; 102(4): 2142 - 2160. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				E. Y. Kimchi, M. M. Torregrossa, J. R. Taylor, and M. Laubach Neuronal Correlates of Instrumental Learning in the Dorsal Striatum J Neurophysiol, July 1, 2009; 102(1): 475 - 489. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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