Somatostatin-excitatory coordination emerges with dexterous motor skill learning

SST interneurons become selectively and temporally coordinated with skill-modulated excitatory neurons in M1 during a persistently M1-dependent reach-to-grasp task.

• Why it matters: Motor learning reshapes spatio-temporal activity in M1, and SST interneurons are causally involved, but how SST–excitatory population interactions evolve during acquisition was unclear.
• What they did: Mice were imaged across successive days while learning a dexterous reach-to-grasp task; trial-resolved functional interactions were quantified between SST or PV interneurons and excitatory neurons.
• The result: SST–excitatory interactions emerged with learning, were stronger than excitatory–excitatory or PV–excitatory pairs, strengthened with recruitment, and SST temporal consistency tracked behavioral performance after accounting for session number.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.