Dopamine and beta-band oscillations differentially link to striatal value and motor control

Parkinson’s disease is characterized by decreased dopamine and increased beta-band oscillatory activity accompanying debilitating motor and mood impairments. Coordinate dopamine-beta opposition is considered a normative rule for basal ganglia function. We report a breakdown of this rule. We developed multimodal systems allowing the first simultaneous, chronic recordings of dopamine release and beta-band activity in the striatum of nonhuman primates during behavioral performance. Dopamine and beta signals were anticorrelated over seconds-long time frames, in agreement with the posited rule, but at finer time scales, we identified conditions in which these signals were modulated with the same polarity. These measurements demonstrated that task-elicited beta suppressions preceded dopamine peaks and that relative dopamine-beta timing and polarity depended on reward value, performance history, movement, and striatal domain. These findings establish a new view of coordinate dopamine and beta signaling operations, critical to guide novel strategies for diagnosing and treating Parkinson’s disease and related neurodegenerative disorders.