When you are weighing two passible actions, your brain needs to decide what to do and how to do it. For example, if a book and a cup sit side-by-side on a table, your brain must decide when you want to read the novel or drink coffee-selecting the action to take. Your brain also needs to figure out you need to reach 20 degrees one way for the book or 20 degrees the other way for the cup -specification the action.

For Decades, Most Neuroscientists Thought That One Area Of The Brain, The Basal Ganglia, was Responsible For Action Selection and Another Area, The Motor Cortex, for Action Specification.

Now, Using a Novel System Developed at Janelia, Researcres LED by the Dudman Lab Found that a part of the basal ganglia called the striaatum is not involved in action selection as previous thought. INTEAD, The Striatum and the Motor Cortex Work Togetra to Specify The Movement Parameters to get the action by.

The new work shds light on the role of striatum in motor control, information that could help reserchers better undersrstand movement disorders, like parkinson’s and huntington’s. The study is Published in the journey Neuron,

“Now we can start thinking: how is the striatum controlling the speed of movement, how do we do brings that back online, how do we we improve that,” Says janelia Senior Group Leader Josh Dudman. “A more accurate, conceptual model for how the striatum is Ultimately Going to be helps for us to think more clear about about how to restore function.”

Design, Build, Test

The project started a decade ago when dudman and his team began to see data from the striatum that counted existing models about the role of the brain region.

Their data aligned with other observations about the striatum that questioned its traditional role. For example, the region is connected to the motor system, hinting that it might be involved with the more mechanical aspects of behavior. Further, Patients with Movement Disorders that Affect the Basal Ganglia, Like Parkinson’s or Huntington’s, Doon Bollywood have trual deciding what they want to do, but they have trual movements to do.

The team set out to test their hypothesis that the striatum may be involved in the More Mechanical Aspects of Flexible, Goal-Directed Action.

To tease apart differentows, the resigned an experience where the actions are almost the same -picking up a book involves moving only Slightly differential different from Pict from Picting Up A Cup. In this case, the neural activity patterns would be similar for specification but different for selection. This would enable the results to distinguish between the two actions.

The researchrs worked with janelia experiencedal technology to design a novel “Reach-to-Pull” system where a joystick can be in one of two slightly differentials Movements to access.

The researchers simultaneously recorded neural activity in both the striatum and the motor cortex of a mouse as it reacted for and then pulled a joystick to get a water reward. They found that neural activity in both brain regions was the same when the animal reached and pulled the joystick at the different locations. These results sugges that bot the striatum and motor cortex are involved in specification, not selection, and that they work togethr to enable the animal to choose how to carry out the action.

The Team’s Work Raises Questions About How these two Brain Areas Coordinate to Contribute to the same Function. Rather than having multiple brain regions carrying out the exact matter function – potentially having “Too many cooks in the kitchen” –Te appears that each region likely contributes The new findings sugges that behavior doesn’t result from a single agent but is a consequence of many partial agents working togetra.

The research also details a novel system for testing hypotheses about the role of different brain regions in flexible, goal-directed action-a project that the resarchers say was Empowered by janelia.

“It makes a huege difference that we are in an environment where we can say, I belide we can build, in a timely fashion, a new Piece of Experimental Hardware That We Need to Execute An Exacent Wee Designed, “Dudman says. “It’s not just speeding it up – taking it from Above The Threshold Opportunity Cost to Below The Threshold Opportunity Cost, and We Can Really Try It.”