Two-photon imaging in mice shows striosomes and matrix have overlapping but differential reinforcement-related responses
Abstract
Despite the discovery of striosomes several decades ago, technical hurdles have hampered the study of the functions of these striatal compartments. Here we used 2-photon calcium imaging in neuronal birthdate-labeled Mash1-CreER;Ai14 mice to image simultaneously the activity of striosomal and matrix neurons as mice performed an auditory conditioning task. With this method, we were able to identify circumscribed zones of tdTomato-labeled neuropil that correspond to striosomes as verified immunohistochemically. Neurons in both striosomes and matrix responded to reward-predicting cues and were active during or after consummatory licking. However, we found quantitative differences in response strength: striosomal neurons fired more to reward-predicting cues and encoded more information about expected outcome as mice learned the task, whereas matrix neurons were more strongly modulated by recent reward history. These findings open the possibility of harnessing in vivo imaging to determine the contributions of striosomes and matrix to striatal circuit function.
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Author details
Funding
Simons Foundation (306140)
- Ann M Graybiel
National Science Foundation (EF1451125)
- Mriganka Sur
Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative
- Mriganka Sur
National Eye Institute (F32 EY024857)
- Rafiq Huda
National Institute of Mental Health (K99 MH112855)
- Rafiq Huda
Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation
- Ann M Graybiel
William N. & Bernice E. Bumpus foundation (RRDA pilot 2013.1)
- Ann M Graybiel
William N. & Bernice E. Bumpus foundation
- Bernard Bloem
National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH060379)
- Ann M Graybiel
Saks Kavanaugh Foundation
- Ann M Graybiel
Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia and Parkinson Foundation
- Ann M Graybiel
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research - Rubicon
- Bernard Bloem
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (U01 NS090473)
- Mriganka Sur
National Eye Institute (R01 EY007023)
- Mriganka Sur
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All experiments were conducted in accordance with the National Institute of Health guidelines and with the approval of the Committee on Animal Care at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (protocol #: 1114-122-17).
Copyright
© 2017, Bloem et al.
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.