Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Nat Commun. 2024 Mar 8;15(1):2119. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-45921-9.
The basal ganglia and the cerebellum are major subcortical structures in the motor system. The basal ganglia have been cast as the reward center of the motor system, whereas the cerebellum is thought to be involved in adjusting sensorimotor parameters. Recent findings of reward signals in the cerebellum have challenged this dichotomous view. To compare the basal ganglia and the cerebellum directly, we recorded from oculomotor regions in both structures from the same monkeys. We partitioned the trial-by-trial variability of the neurons into reward and eye-movement signals to compare the coding across structures. Reward expectation and movement signals were the most pronounced in the output structure of the basal ganglia, intermediate in the cerebellum, and the smallest in the input structure of the basal ganglia. These findings suggest that reward and movement information is sharpened through the basal ganglia, resulting in a higher signal-to-noise ratio than in the cerebellum.
基底神经节和小脑是运动系统中的主要皮质下结构。基底神经节被认为是运动系统的奖励中心，而小脑则被认为参与了调节感觉运动参数。最近在小脑中发现的奖励信号挑战了这种二分法观点。为了直接比较基底神经节和小脑，我们从同一猴子的两个结构中的眼动区域进行了记录。我们将神经元的逐试变异性划分为奖励和眼球运动信号，以比较结构之间的编码。在基底神经节的输出结构中，奖励预期和运动信号最为明显，在小脑中等，在基底神经节的输入结构中最小。这些发现表明，奖励和运动信息通过基底神经节得到了增强，从而产生了比小脑更高的信噪比。
