Whether or not to act is determined by distinct signals from motor thalamus and orbitofrontal cortex to secondary motor cortex

Eriko Yoshida, Masashi Kondo, Ken Nakae, Rie Ako, Shin-ichiro Terada, Natsuki Hatano, Ling Liu, Kenta Kobayashi, Shin Ishii and Masanori Matsuzaki ()
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Eriko Yoshida: The University of Tokyo
Masashi Kondo: The University of Tokyo
Ken Nakae: Kyoto University
Rie Ako: The University of Tokyo
Shin-ichiro Terada: The University of Tokyo
Natsuki Hatano: The University of Tokyo
Ling Liu: The University of Tokyo
Kenta Kobayashi: National Institute for Physiological Sciences
Shin Ishii: Kyoto University
Masanori Matsuzaki: The University of Tokyo

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Abstract “To act or not to act” is a fundamental decision made in daily life. However, it is unknown how the relevant signals are transmitted to the secondary motor cortex (M2), which is the cortical origin of motor initiation. Here, we found that in a decision-making task in male mice, inputs from the thalamus to M2 positively regulated the action while inputs from the lateral part of the orbitofrontal cortex (LO) negatively regulated it. The motor thalamus that received the basal ganglia outputs transmitted action value-related signals to M2 regardless of whether the animal acted or not. By contrast, a large subpopulation of LO inputs showed decreased activity before and during the action, regardless of the action value. These results suggest that M2 integrates the positive signal of the action value from the motor thalamus with the negative action-biased signal from the LO to finally determine whether to act or not.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-58272-w

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