Corticostriatal neurones in auditory cortex drive decisions during auditory discrimination

The neural pathways by which information about the acoustic world reaches the auditory cortex are well characterised, but how auditory representations are transformed into motor commands is not known. Here we have used a perceptual decision-making task to study this transformation. We directly demonstrate the role of corticostriatal projection neurones in auditory decisions by specifically manipulating the activity of these neurones in rats performing an auditory frequency discrimination task. Targeted Channelrhodopsin-2(1,2) (ChR2)-mediated stimulation of corticostriatal neurones during the task biased decisions in the direction predicted by the frequency tuning of the stimulated neurones, whereas archaerhodopsin-3(3) (Arch)-mediated inactivation biased decisions in the opposite direction. Striatal projections are widespread in cortex and may provide a general mechanism for the control of motor decisions by sensory cortex.