Collateral-defined prefrontal-striatal circuits partition behavioral vigor during appetitive goal pursuit

Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex neurons projecting to dorsomedial striatum partition appetitive goal pursuit vigor, with DMS/PL promoting initiation and DMS/aIC constraining approach.

• Why it matters: It remains unclear how behavioral vigor is regulated across distinct appetitive processes and which prefrontal-striatal circuits implement that component-specific control.
• What they did: In self-paced operant tasks, action initiation and reward approach vigor showed distinct sensitivities to motivational state and outcome value; single-cell calcium imaging and collateral-defined dmPFC→DMS ensembles tracked trial-by-trial vigor, and optogenetics tested causality.
• The result: DMS/PL and DMS/aIC intratelencephalic populations were preferentially recruited for initiation and approach, respectively, and received inputs from distinct brain-wide networks, enabling selective control of appetitive goal pursuit components.