Rui M. Costa

This study shows how reinforcement learning modifies specific dendritic activity through synaptic plasticity, leading to the formation of task-relevant synaptic ensembles.

The paper shows that shared striatal neurons adapt their dynamics to support both internally and externally driven actions through context-specific changes in neural activity.

This study identifies and manipulates striatal ensembles to show they control fine motor actions in real time.

The paper develops a behavioural assay to study flexible navigation in mice, showing they learn maze structures quickly and navigate efficiently.

The paper reveals the external globus pallidus (GPe) as a basal ganglia output hub with distinct subpopulations that mediate specific behaviors through projection-specific circuits.

The paper identifies two main dyskinesia types and pathological rotations in a mouse model of LID using high-resolution motion sensors and video recordings, linking them to abnormal activity in specific striatal SPN ensembles.

The paper generates and characterizes knock-in mouse lines for precise genetic targeting of striatal and dopaminergic neurons, confirming their utility for studying neural circuits and disorders.

The paper identifies corticothalamic neurons in the motor cortex as having a permissive role in motor execution by suppressing inhibition of corticospinal neurons during movement.

The paper identifies transcriptomically distinct subclasses in the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) and shows their topographic organization, target projections, and conservation across species.

The paper shows that D1- and D2-MSNs in the NAc shell encode appetitive and aversive stimuli and their extinction, with D2-MSNs playing a key role in aversive association extinction.

The paper identifies a specific subtype of dopaminergic neurons, Anxa1+, that are selectively lost in Parkinson's disease and contribute to early motor symptoms.

The paper identifies distinct anatomical and functional corticospinal inputs to different spinal neuron types in mice, revealing homology to primate organization.

The paper maps the connectivity of rostral and caudal forelimb corticospinal neurons to spinal cell types, showing similar targets with notable differences in influence on behavior.

This study shows that exploratory behavior during training biases the movement strategies mice use to reach a spatial target.

This study shows that dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta encode contralateral movement vigor through transient activity, not general motivation.

This study investigates how dopamine-dependent credit assignment refines behavioral structures through repeated reinforcement of specific actions and action sequences.

The paper introduces Myomatrix arrays, a high-resolution electrode technology for recording muscle activity from motor units across species during natural behaviors.

This study shows that invariant neural dynamics guide movement commands across different movements using a brain-machine interface in rhesus macaques.

The paper uses single-nucleus RNA- and ATAC-sequencing to identify a CD83+ microglial subpopulation depleted in Parkinson's disease, with implications for neuronal vulnerability.

This study shows that striatal activity encodes the dynamics of cortical activity's proximity to reward during learning, with dorsal and ventral striatum playing distinct roles.

The paper shows that motor cortical activity covariation changes between tasks, driving distinct muscle activation patterns rather than relying on fixed flexion/extension programs or task-specific neuronal subsets.

This study shows that mice learn to control pyramidal tract (PT) motor cortex neurons more effectively than intra-telencephalic (IT) neurons using a calcium imaging-based brain-machine interface.

pyControl provides open-source hardware and software for designing and running complex behavioural experiments with improved reproducibility and scalability.

The paper identifies a novel feedforward excitatory circuit in the corticostriatal pathway involving PT neurons, ChIs, and SPNs, resulting in biphasic excitation of striatal neurons.

The paper identifies an amygdala circuit that mediates experience-dependent momentary exploratory arrests in mice without affecting place preference or anxiety-like behaviors.

The paper shows corticospinal neurons relay both kinematic-related and unrelated motor signals to distinct striatal and spinal pathways through biased innervation strategies.

This study identifies distinct sustained neural states in dopaminergic and noradrenergic networks that mediate different aspects of exploitative behavior.

This study shows that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) represents action-state transitions and mediates model-based reinforcement learning in mice by influencing subsequent choices based on these transitions.

This study confirms right-hemisphere predominance of lesions in lesional mania and identifies specific brain regions associated with mood regulation.