Activity in striatal direct- and indirect-pathway spiny projection neurons (SPNs) is critical for proper movement. However, little is known about the spatiotemporal organization of this activity. We investigated the spatiotemporal organization of SPN ensemble activity in mice during self-paced, natural movements using microendoscopic imaging. Activity in both pathways showed predominantly local but also some long-range correlations. Using a novel approach to cluster and quantify behaviors based on continuous accelerometer and video data, we found that SPN ensembles active during specific actions were spatially closer and more correlated overall. Furthermore, similarity between different actions corresponded to the similarity between SPN ensemble patterns, irrespective of movement speed. Consistently, the accuracy of decoding behavior from SPN ensemble patterns was directly related to the dissimilarity between behavioral clusters. These results identify a predominantly local, but not spatially compact, organization of direct- and indirect-pathway SPN activity that maps action space independently of movement speed.

中文翻译：

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纹状体的时空组织编码动作空间。

纹状体直接和间接途径的棘突投射神经元（SPNs）中的活动对于正常运动至关重要。但是，对这项活动的时空组织了解甚少。我们使用微内窥镜成像技术研究了小鼠自律，自然运动过程中SPN集合活动的时空组织。两种途径中的活性都主要表现为局部的，但也存在一些长期的相关性。使用基于连续加速度计和视频数据的新颖方法对行为进行聚类和量化，我们发现在特定动作期间活动的SPN集合在空间上更紧密，整体上更相关。此外，不同动作之间的相似度对应于SPN集成模式之间的相似度，而与运动速度无关。始终如一 SPN集成模式解码行为的准确性与行为簇之间的相似性直接相关。这些结果确定了直接和间接途径SPN活动的主要是局部的，但在空间上却不紧凑的组织，该组织独立于运动速度来映射动作空间。