Dopamine is essential for striatal function and learning. Striatal dopamine release can be triggered by dopamine cell firing, but also by coordinated cholinergic interneuron activity, which stimulates dopamine release via presynaptic nicotinic acetylcholine receptors on dopamine axons. While acetylcholine-dependent dopamine release is well-documented ex vivo and under artificial optogenetic stimulation in vivo, its role during natural behavior has remained unclear. One possible endogenous driver of acetylcholine-dependent dopamine release is thalamic input, which provides strong excitatory drive to cholinergic interneurons. To examine whether thalamic input provokes acetylcholine-dependent dopamine release during behavior, we performed simultaneous fiber photometry recordings of striatal dopamine (GRAB-rDA3m) and thalamic axon activity (gCaMP8m) in the dorsomedial (DMS) and dorsolateral striatum (DLS) of mice learning the accelerating rotarod, a striatal-dependent task that demands precise and effortful motor control. Recordings were obtained on- and off-task and across days of training to capture the full arc of learning. Dopamine transients in DMS, but not DLS, were frequently coupled to peaks in thalamic axon activity via an acetylcholine-dependent mechanism. The occurrence of these thalamic-evoked DMS dopamine transients depended on learning, task engagement, and the recent history of dopamine activity, but did not contribute to motor error signals. Together, these findings establish thalamic input as a physiological driver of acetylcholine-dependent dopamine release in DMS. Moreover, they reveal that striatal sensitivity to this local release mechanism is dynamically gated by dopaminergic history, providing a compelling framework for understanding how local and soma-triggered dopamine signals are coordinated to support learning.

High-resolution extracellular electrophysiology is the gold standard for recording spikes from distributed neural populations and is especially powerful when combined with optogenetics for manipulation of specific cell types with high temporal resolution. We integrated these approaches into prototype Neuropixels Opto probes, which combine electronic and photonic circuits. These devices pack 960 electrical recording sites and two sets of 14 light emitters onto a 70-μm-wide, 1-cm-long shank, allowing spatially addressable optogenetic stimulation with blue and red light. In mouse cortex, Neuropixels Opto probes delivered high-quality recordings together with spatially addressable optogenetics, differentially activating or silencing neurons at distinct cortical depths. In the mouse striatum and other deep structures, Neuropixels Opto probes delivered efficient optotagging, facilitating the identification of two cell types in parallel. Neuropixels Opto probes represent a promising tool for recording, identifying and manipulating neuronal populations.

Although learning in response to extrinsic reinforcement is theorized to be driven by dopamine signals that encode the difference between expected and experienced rewards, skills that enable verbal or musical expression can be learned without extrinsic reinforcement. Instead, spontaneous execution of these skills is thought to be intrinsically reinforcing. Whether dopamine signals similarly guide learning of these intrinsically reinforced behaviours is unknown. In juvenile zebra finches learning from an adult tutor, dopamine signalling in a song-specialized basal ganglia region is required for successful song copying, a spontaneous, intrinsically reinforced process. Here we show that dopamine dynamics in the song basal ganglia faithfully track the learned quality of juvenile song performance on a rendition-by-rendition basis. Furthermore, dopamine release in the basal ganglia is driven not only by inputs from midbrain dopamine neurons classically associated with reinforcement learning but also by song premotor inputs, which act by means of local cholinergic signalling to elevate dopamine during singing. Although both cholinergic and dopaminergic signalling are necessary for juvenile song learning, only dopamine tracks the learned quality of song performance. Therefore, dopamine dynamics in the basal ganglia encode performance quality during self-directed, long-term learning of natural behaviours.

Basal Ganglia Advances is a collection highlighting research on the structure, function, and disorders of the basal ganglia. It features studies spanning neuroscience, clinical insights, and computational models, serving as a hub for advances in movement, cognition, and behavior.

Recent advances in the field of Voltage Imaging, with a special focus on new constructs and novel implementations.

Work related to place tuning, spatial navigation, orientation and direction. Mainly includes articles on connectivity in the hippocampus, retrosplenial cortex, and related areas.

Androgen deprivation is assumed to boost antitumor immunity-but Lee et al. overturn this logic in glioblastoma, showing that androgen loss activates a microglial inflammasome-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis cascade that elevates glucocorticoids and attenuates T cell function. The study reveals how organ context reverses endocrine control of tumor immunity.

The National Sleep Foundation published its landmark sleep duration re--ations, the first of its kind, in 2015. Marking the 10-year anniversary of this pivotal work, the National Sleep Foundation embarked on a systematic review and narrative synthesis of meta-analyses to determine if the sleep duration re--ations require adjustment and to examine potential sex differences in sleep duration re--ations. A focused systematic review of the previous decade of published, peer-reviewed meta-analyses on normal sleep duration was conducted in June 2025 using National Library of Medicine's PubMed, Elsevier's EMBASE, and Clarivate's Web of Science. After screening, eligibility assessment, and extraction, a total of 133 meta-analyses were included in the review. Through a double review process, data were extracted and used to determine whether articles were (1) consistent with NSF re--ations, (2) contradictory with NSF re--ations, or (3) inconclusive regarding NSF re--ations. The majority of the articles (74%; n = 99) were consistent with the NSF's sleep duration re--ations, with most meta-analyses focused on adult age groups. The remaining 34 (26%) articles were inconclusive, with no articles found to be contradictory regarding both short and long sleep durations re--ations. The majority of meta-analysis reported nonsignificant sex differences. This review re-certifies the NSF's sleep duration re--ations. Findings also identified multiple directions for future research, including calls for greater study of positive benefits from achieving the NSF-re--ed sleep duration as well as greater use of evidence-based sleep duration thresholds in empirical research.