How do you execute the right move at the right time? Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden analyzed how neurons process information to enable these actions.
Imagine that you are playing a score on the piano. Your finger movements adjust to the sound you hear and the feel of the keys. Swedish researchers from the Karolinska Institute wanted to understand how our brain organizes our movements. Their results, published in the journal Cell Reportsshow that different neurons, located in a part of the brain called the striatum, respond to several types of information.
From feeling to action
In fact, many behaviors occur in response to sensory information. If we take the example of the piano again, the sensations related to the fingers are processed in the somatosensory cortex, the area of the brain specialized in touch. Movements, on the other hand, are planned in another part of the brain, the motor cortex. All of this information is sent to the striatum, where future movement and sensory information is combined. Then, the striatum generates a signal sent to the muscles, which makes it possible to press the following keys of the piano.
Each type of neuron brings a different response
“Although it has long been known that the striatum is made up of different types of nerve cells, it is not known how these cells perform this complex function, explains Yvonne Johansson, from the department of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute. To answer this question, we asked which types of cells in the striatum process which incoming information.” Their work, carried out on mice, revealed that medium spiny neurons, for example, respond mainly to sensory information related to touch. Other classes of neurons are activated by inputs from the motor cortex where movements are planned.
Our brain is very organized
Additionally, the researchers found that the responses of these types of neurons are shaped by different types of receptors because some open faster than others. All of these results provide a better understanding of how the striatum processes the large amount of information it receives. “Our work shows that the flow of information in the striatum is very organized and that this large amount of data targets neurons and takes specific paths”, concludes Gilad Silberberg, professor in the department of neurosciences at the Karolinska Institute.
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