Distinct involvements of the subthalamic nucleus subpopulations in reward-biased decision-making in monkeys.

Abstract

The subthalamic nucleus (STN) is a part of the indirect and hyperdirect pathways in the basal ganglia (BG) and has been implicated in movement control, impulsivity, and decision-making. We recently demonstrated that, for perceptual decisions, the STN includes at least three subpopulations of neurons with different decision-related activity patterns (Branam et al., 2024). Here, we show that, for decisions that require both perceptual and reward-based processing, many STN neurons are sensitive to both sensory evidence and reward expectations. Within a drift-diffusion framework, three STN subpopulations show different relationships to model components reflecting the formation of the decision variable, dynamics of the decision bound, and non-decision-related processes. Many STN neurons also represent quantities related to decision evaluation, including choice accuracy and reward expectation. These results help to further delineate the multiple roles that STN plays in forming and evaluating complex decisions that combine multiple sources of information.