title: An inhibitory corticostriatal pathway.
abstract: Anatomical and physiological studies have led to the assumption that the dorsal striatum receives exclusively excitatory afferents from the cortex. Here we test the hypothesis that the dorsal striatum receives also GABAergic projections from the cortex. We addressed this fundamental question by taking advantage of optogenetics and directly examining the functional effects of cortical GABAergic inputs to spiny projection neurons (SPNs) of the mouse auditory and motor cortex. We found that the cortex, via corticostriatal somatostatin neurons (CS-SOM), has a direct inhibitory influence on the output of the striatum SPNs. Our results describe a corticostriatal long-range inhibitory circuit (CS-SOM inhibitory projections → striatal SPNs) underlying the control of spike timing/generation in SPNs and attributes a specific function to a genetically defined type of cortical interneuron in corticostriatal communication.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Neurosciences Institute, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, United States.
authors.forename: Crystal
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-6986-6166
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rock
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Neurosciences Institute, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, United States.
authors.forename: Hector
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zurita
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Neurosciences Institute, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, United States.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Neurosciences Institute, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, United States.
authors.forename: Alfonso Junior
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3929-8583
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Apicella
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D059330:GABAergic Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D051379:Mice; D009433:Neural Inhibition; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D062308:Optogenetics
keywords: CS-SOM neurons; auditory; corticostriatal; dSPNs; iSPNs; inhibition; motor cortex; mouse; neuroscience