The rostral intralaminar nuclear complex of the thalamus supports striatally mediated action reinforcement

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.83627
• Publication Date: 2023-04-06T11:00:19Z
• Authors: Kara K Cover; Abby G Lieberman; Morgan M Heckman; Brian N Mathur
• Keywords: Action selection

The dorsal striatum (DS) mediates the selection of actions for reward acquisition necessary survival. Striatal pathology contributes to several neuropsychiatric conditions, including aberrant specific rewards in addiction. A major source glutamate driving striatal activity is rostral intralaminar nuclei (rILN) thalamus. Yet, information that relayed support action unknown. Here, we discovered rILN neurons projecting DS are innervated by a range cortical and subcortical afferents rILN→DS stably signaled at two time points mice performing an sequence task reinforced sucrose reward: initiation acquisition. In vivo activation this pathway increased number successful trials, whereas inhibition decreased trials. These findings illuminate role nuclear complex reinforcing actions.