Neuron
Volume 83, Issue 5, 3 September 2014, Pages 1200-1212
Journal home page for Neuron

Article
Multisensory Integration in the Mouse Striatum

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2014.07.033Get rights and content
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open access

Highlights

  • Sensory integration in mouse striatum was studied using whole-cell in vivo recordings

  • Neurons in dorsomedial striatum integrate tactile and visual sensory inputs

  • Sensory responses are mediated by overlapping excitation and inhibition

  • Bilateral sensory input is integrated differently by direct and indirect pathway MSNs

Summary

The basal ganglia are involved in sensorimotor functions and action selection, both of which require the integration of sensory information. In order to determine how such sensory inputs are integrated, we obtained whole-cell recordings in mouse dorsal striatum during presentation of tactile and visual stimuli. All recorded neurons responded to bilateral whisker stimulation, and a subpopulation also responded to visual stimulation. Neurons responding to both visual and tactile stimuli were located in dorsomedial striatum, whereas those responding only to whisker deflections were located dorsolaterally. Responses were mediated by overlapping excitation and inhibition, with excitation onset preceding that of inhibition by several milliseconds. Responses differed according to the type of neuron, with direct pathway MSNs having larger responses and longer latencies between ipsilateral and contralateral responses than indirect pathway MSNs. Our results suggest that striatum acts as a sensory “hub” with specialized functional roles for the different neuron types.

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This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).