Striatal activity reflects cortical activity patterns

The dorsal striatum is organized into domains that drive characteristic behaviors 1–7 , and receive inputs from different parts of the cortex 8,9 which modulate similar behaviors 10–12 . Striatal responses to cortical inputs, however, can be affected by changes in connection strength 13–15 , local striatal circuitry 16,17 , and thalamic inputs 18,19 . Therefore, it is unclear whether the pattern of activity across striatal domains mirrors that across the cortex 20–23 or differs from it 24–28 . Here we use simultaneous large-scale recordings in the cortex and the striatum to show that striatal activity can be accurately predicted by spatiotemporal activity patterns in the cortex. The relationship between activity in the cortex and the striatum was spatially consistent with corticostriatal anatomy, and temporally consistent with a feedforward drive. Each striatal domain exhibited specific sensorimotor responses that predictably followed activity in the associated cortical regions, and the corticostriatal relationship remained unvaried during passive states or performance of a task probing visually guided behavior. However, the task’s visual stimuli and corresponding behavioral responses evoked relatively more activity in the striatum than in associated cortical regions. This increased striatal activity involved an additive offset in firing rate, which was independent of task engagement but only present in animals that had learned the task. Thus, striatal activity largely reflects patterns of cortical activity, deviating from them in a simple additive fashion for learned stimuli or actions.