Dissociated sequential activity and stimulus encoding in the dorsomedial striatum during spatial working memory

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Abstract

Several lines of evidence suggest that the striatum has an important role in spatial working memory. The neural dynamics in the striatum have been described in tasks with short delay periods (1-4s), but remain largely uncharacterized for tasks with longer delay periods. We collected and analyzed single unit recordings from the dorsomedial striatum of rats performing a spatial working memory task with delays up to 10s. We found that neurons were activated sequentially, with the sequences spanning the entire delay period. Surprisingly, this sequential activity was dissociated from stimulus encoding activity, which was present in the same neurons, but preferentially appeared towards the onset of the delay period. These observations contrast with descriptions of sequential dynamics during similar tasks in other brains areas, and clarify the contribution of the striatum in spatial working memory.

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Hessameddin Akhlaghpour

Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Joost Wiskerke

Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Jung Yoon Choi

Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Joshua P Taliaferro

Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6051-8635
Jennifer Au

Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Ilana Witten

Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States

For correspondence
iwitten@princeton.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0548-2160

Funding

NSF Office of the Director (GRFP)

Hessameddin Akhlaghpour

NIH Office of the Director (5R01MH106689-02)

Ilana Witten

McKnight Foundation

Ilana Witten

Pew Charitable Trusts

Ilana Witten

NIH Office of the Director (1 DP2 DA035149-01)

Ilana Witten

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (1876-15) of Princeton University. All surgery was performed under anesthesia, and every effort was made to minimize suffering.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.