Top-down corticostriatal control of adaptive restraint during motivational conflict.

Abstract

Adaptive behavior under threat requires withholding reward pursuit when past experiences predict danger. Here, we identified a corticostriatal circuit that enables behavioral restraint during motivational conflict. Using a seminaturalistic foraging task in male rats, we found that inactivation of the prelimbic cortex (PL) abolished restraint without impairing memory, and single-unit recordings revealed transient PL firing increases at decision points in conflict trials. c-Fos mapping showed selective engagement of the PL and nucleus accumbens core (NAcC) but not the nucleus accumbens shell. Inactivation further revealed that the anterior NAcC (aNAcC), but not the posterior NAcC, is necessary for restraint as posterior disruption broadly reduced reward-seeking regardless of threat. Silencing PL→aNAcC projections reproduced aNAcC effects without affecting memory or motivation, and this pathway was required under learned, but not innate, threats. Together, these findings identify a corticostriatal pathway through which PL control of aNAcC supports learned threat-guided restraint during reward seeking, revealing a top-down circuit architecture for adaptive action control during motivational conflict.