Prefrontal Neurons Projecting to the Dorsomedial Striatum and Insular Cortex Support Reward Learning.

Authors

Baihui Ren, Mengmeng Shao, Qingdan Kong, Xiaobo Ma, Dongping Huang, Miao He, Yilin Tai, Jiangteng Lu

Published in

Neuroscience bulletin. Aug 03, 2026. Epub Aug 03, 2026.

Abstract

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) contains projection-defined neuronal populations that route information to multiple downstream targets. However, their role in reward learning remains unclear. Here, we identified and functionally characterized a subpopulation of mPFC neurons collateralizing to the dorsomedial striatum (DMS) and the contralateral anterior insular cortex (aIC). Fiber photometry and single-cell calcium imaging revealed that mPFC^DMS+aIC neurons responded robustly to reward stimuli and exhibited learning-enhanced, unconditioned stimulus (US)-evoked activity during reward conditioning, whereas conditioned stimulus (CS) responses remained stable. This enhancement reflected an increased response magnitude and a greater proportion of US-responsive neurons. Importantly, optogenetic inhibition of these neurons during the US period, but not during the CS period, impaired the acquisition of conditioned anticipatory licking. Taken together, our findings identify a finely projection-defined mPFC neuronal subpopulation that preferentially contributes to reinforcement-related updating during reward learning.

PMID:
42545655
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 03 Aug 2026.

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