Opponent ventrolateral striatal circuits regulate behavioral flexibility and rigidity.

Abstract

Basal ganglia circuits support the flexible selection of context-appropriate actions, and their dysfunction underlies pathologies defined by behavioral rigidity. Whether such rigidity reflects biased engagement of the same circuits that normally enable flexibility is unknown. To study behavior across adaptive and maladaptive contexts, we developed a deep-learning framework that classifies ethologically meaningful actions from raw video (STEREO). To associate striatal circuit function with flexible and rigid behavioral states, we integrated STEREO with population recordings and pathway-specific manipulations in freely behaving mice, identifying a striatal circuit that governs flexible and rigid selection of orofacial behaviors. Using a psychostimulant to induce pathological rigidity, we found that repeated exposure progressively collapses a rich behavioral repertoire into persistent dominance of a single orofacial action, with concurrent recruitment of ventrolateral striatal direct- and indirect-pathway neurons. Causal interrogation revealed opponent control within a shared selection mechanism: indirect-pathway activation rapidly alleviated cocaine-induced rigidity, while direct-pathway activation alone was sufficient to drive drug-mimetic stereotyped bouts. These findings demonstrate that biased recruitment of striatal direct-pathway circuits transforms flexible action selection into compulsive motor output.