Mediodorsal Thalamic Input to Striatum Contributes to Early Action Learning

Action control is hypothesized to be mediated by corticothalamo-basal ganglia loops subserving the acquisition and updating of action contingencies. Within this, the mediodorsal thalamus (MD) is thought to contribute to volitional control over behavior largely through its interactions with prefrontal cortex. However, MD also projects into striatum, the main input nucleus of the basal ganglia, and the contribution of such projections to behavioral control is not known. Using a mouse model of volitional action control in either sex, here we find that MD terminal calcium activity in dorsal medial striatum (MD→DMS) represents action information during initial acquisition of a novel action contingency. This representation of action information decreases with continued experience. Data demonstrate MD→DMS activity is necessary to learn and employ a contingency control over actions. Functional attenuation of MD→DMS activity negated normal exploration, instead biasing repetitive action control, and resulted in mice unable to adapt their initial action strategy upon changes in action contingency. This suggests MD supports plasticity underlying initial action strategy learning used to adjust control given changing contingencies. Overall, these data show that MD projections into striatum contribute to volitional action control that supports acquisition of adaptive behavior.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Journal of Neuroscience

• Publication date

  2025-09-11

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0835-25.2025PMID 40935667PMCID PMC12548716
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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