Prefrontal Cortical Projection Neurons Targeting Dorsomedial Striatum Control Behavioral Inhibition

The Human Basal Ganglia Mediate the Interplay between Reactive and Proactive Control of Response through Both Motor Inhibition and Sensory Modulation

“…There is already strong evidence that attentional biasing signals in human visual cortex can be obtained in the absence of any visual stimulation, when subjects are just expecting visual stimuli [ 94 ]. In response inhibition experiments, distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate stimuli is a prerequisite for providing appropriate responses to each type of stimulus, and attentional and inhibitory processes are obviously intricately linked, if not confounded [ 3 , 42 , 43 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ]. A major finding of the present study is that the human ventral striatum likely plays a major role in this function, contributing indirectly to inhibitory performance as the stronger the changes in functional connectivity between the ventral striatum and visual areas, the larger the behavioral effect ( Figure 3 ).…”

“…It also has to do with attentional supervisory control and the modulation of sensory processing through other BG loops involving the ventral striatum. Understanding how the distinct circuits within and outside the striatum interact to coordinate cognitive and motor control remains a central issue [ 3 , 42 , 43 , 123 ] with major implications for the interpretation and clinical management of patients with cognitive and motor dysfunctions related to BG disorders [ 118 , 124 ]. More precisely, multiple and opposite symptoms can result from disorders of various inhibitory functions depending on distinct cortico–striatal substrates.…”

“…Within this framework, the BG obviously play a critical role thanks to their central position within the motor, associative and limbic integrative and interacting circuits ( Figure 1 ) [ 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Here, we will focus more specifically on non-selective reactive inhibition of response, which is context dependent and thus requires an inhibitory set [ 13 , 20 , 30 , 31 , 41 ] under supervisory predictive control [ 3 , 42 , 43 ]. However, how this interplay is implemented in the BG and how it operates within functional circuits is still obscure.…”

Striatum-projecting prefrontal cortex neurons support working memory maintenance

“…In addition to planning choice-related actions, prefrontal-striatal projections could be involved in impulsivity control, which is crucial for the successful execution of a WM task. In line with this notion, mPFCdmStr projection neurons recently were found to selectively engage in inhibitory control 50 . In our experiments, perturbation of brain dynamics with the NMDA receptor blocker MK-801 induced hyperactivity, possibly by affecting such inhibitory control function of the mPFCdmStr pathway.…”

Neurochemical substrates linked to impulsive and compulsive phenotypes in addiction: A preclinical perspective

“…As the backbone of the impulsivity networks, glutamate has been widely researched in recent years (Carli & Invernizzi, 2014;Ucha et al, 2019;Weidacker et al, 2020;Yates & Bardo, 2017), with glutamatergic and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-ergic interactions within and between the PFC/OFC and basal ganglia mediating different aspects of inhibitory control. To illustrate this point, rat PFC neurons encode waiting intervals by ramping activity upwardly or downwardly to the expected timing of rewards (Donnelly et al, 2015) and target the dorsomedial striatum to mediate proactive inhibitory control (Terra et al, 2020), perhaps by shifting the balance between the direct (Go) and indirect (No-Go) striatal pathways (Dunovan et al, 2015). The PFC, especially the more ventral infralimbic cortex, plays an important role in the regulation of waiting impulsivity.…”