Behavioral encoding across timescales by region-specific dopamine dynamics

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2215230120
• Publication Date: 2023-02-07T18:06:53Z
• Authors: Søren H. Jørgensen; Aske L. Ejdrup; Matthew D. Lycas; Leonie P. Posselt; Kenneth L. Madsen; Lin Tian; Jakob K. Dreyer; Freja Herborg; Andreas T. Sørensen; Ulrik Gether
• Keywords: Action selection

The dorsal (DS) and ventral striatum (VS) receive dopaminergic projections that control motor functions reward-related behavior. It remains poorly understood how dopamine release dynamics across different temporal scales in these regions are coupled to behavioral outcomes. Here, we employ the sensor dLight1.3b together with multiregion fiber photometry machine learning-based analysis decode during self-paced exploratory behavior mice. Our data show a striking coordination of rapidly fluctuating signal DS, carrying information levels, slower VS, consisting mainly slow-paced transients. Importantly, correlated discrete motifs, such as turns, running, grooming on subsecond-to-minute time scale. Disruption cocaine caused randomization action selection sequencing disturbance DS–VS coordination. suggest distinct DS VS jointly encode sequences unconstrained activity modulating stringing actions initiate sustain selected action.