HIGH-DENSITY MULTI-REGION RECORDINGS UNCOVER MOTOR AND NON-MOTOR RELATED MODULATION OF BETA AND GAMMA OSCILLATIONS DURING GOAL-DIRECTED REACHING IN MICE

Neural activity recorded from the cortico-basal ganglia network in humans, non-human primates, and rats exhibits movement-modulated oscillations. These primarily manifest as event-related desynchronisation in the beta band (13-30 Hz) and synchronisation of gamma band oscillations (60-80 Hz) during movement. However, it remains unclear whether these movement-related oscillatory changes generalize to the mouse model, and to what extent they encode motor and non-motor task variables during reaching. To address this, we analysed local field potentials from Neuropixels recordings in awake, head-fixed mice performing goal-directed forelimb reaches. Power analyses revealed movement-related synchronization of gamma (30-100 Hz) and high-frequency (100-200 Hz) oscillations, and reduction in synchrony in the low-beta band (10-20 Hz) across both motor regions (primary motor and premotor cortices, and motor thalamus) and non-motor regions (orbitofrontal and medial prefrontal cortices, and sensory thalamus). In addition, the beta band exhibited post-cue synchronization, and its timing correlated with reaction time. To dissociate motor and non-motor encoding in higher frequencies (30-200 Hz), we built generalized linear models (GLMs) using task variables to predict frequency-specific power. GLMs revealed that gamma (30-100 Hz) and high-frequency oscillations (>100 Hz) differentially encode kinematic and reward variables in a region-specific manner. Overall, our results provide a brain-wide overview of encoding in the beta and gamma frequency bands of the mouse brain during goal-directed forelimb reaching.