Dopamine-mediated regulation of striatal neuronal and network interactions

The dopaminergic system exerts dynamic modulation of glutamatergic afferent drive that is dependent on the temporal pattern of the dopaminergic input and the subtypes of striatal neurons affected. The differences in feedforward inhibition between striatal neurons comprising the direct and indirect output pathway confer distinct response-pattern differences in their respective targets, supporting brief bursts of activity in Type-I neurons but attenuating repetitive activity in Type-II cells. This temporal patterning is further modulated by NO-mediated signaling, and by tonic and phasic dopamine-mediated stimulation, which exerts preferential actions on indirect and direct output neurons, respectively, As a result, the striatal network is forced into state-dependent patterns of activity that differentially regulate muscle tone and voluntary motor activity via distinct output projections from the striatum.