Claustral Input Consolidates Anterior Cingulate Cortical States for Selective Behavior

Abstract

Efficient behavior depends on consolidating selective strategies that prioritize informative cues and suppress irrelevant signals. Previous studies have implicated the claustrum in coordinating cortical activity and large-scale brain states across behavioral contexts, yet its precise contribution to online behavioral control versus the consolidation of frontal control strategies remains unresolved. Here we combined large-scale Neuropixels recordings with targeted optogenetic perturbation of claustral neurons projecting to the anterior cingulate cortex in behaving mice. During adaptation to altered task context and constraints, frontal cortical activity reorganized into a coordinated control regime characterized by sharpened encoding of task-relevant cues, suppression of non-instructive signals, structured low-frequency dynamics, and rapid transitions between population-level neural states. Temporally misaligned claustral signaling disrupted this reorganization, selectively impairing the consolidation of efficient, cue-selective strategies across sessions without affecting trial-by-trial task execution. These findings identify a role for the claustrum in shaping frontal dynamics that consolidate adaptive control strategies.