Disrupted basal ganglia output during movement preparation in hemi-parkinsonian mice is consistent with behavioral deficits
Parkinsonian motor deficits are associated with elevated inhibitory output from the basal ganglia (BG). However, several features of Parkinson's disease (PD) have not been accounted for by this simple "classical rate model" framework, including the observation in PD patients that movements guided by external stimuli are less impaired than otherwise-identical movements generated based on internal goals. Is this difference due to divergent processing within the BG itself, or to the recruitment of extra-BG pathways by sensory processing? In addition, surprisingly little is known about precisely when, in the sequence from selecting to executing movements, BG output is altered by PD. Here, we address these questions by recording activity in the SNr, a key BG output nucleus, in hemiparkinsonian mice performing a well-controlled behavioral task requiring stimulus-guided and internally-specified directional movements. We found that hemiparkinsonian mice exhibited a bias ipsilateral to the side of dopaminergic cell loss that was stronger when movements were internally specified rather than stimulus guided, consistent with clinical observations in parkinsonian patients. We further found that changes in parkinsonian SNr activity during movement preparation were consistent with the ipsilateral behavioral bias, as well as its greater magnitude for internally-specified movements. While these findings are inconsistent with some aspects of the classical rate model, they are accounted for by a related "directional rate model" positing that SNr output phasically over-inhibits motor output in a direction-specific manner. These results suggest that parkinsonian changes in BG output underlying movement preparation contribute to the greater deficit in internally-specified than stimulus-guided movements.