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.

Prospective Payment Systems (PPS) have been widely adopted over the past two decades as instruments for cost containment and efficiency improvement in health systems. However, much of the existing literature focuses on individual payment arrangements or single-country experiences, with limited attention to broader temporal, structural, and regional patterns reported across PPS-related reforms. This study examines patterns reported in the PPS-related literature published between 2000 and 2024, with particular emphasis on temporal trends, payment architecture, and regional variation in reform approaches.

Low vision rehabilitation is an indispensable and integral part of the national eye health initiative, and it is directly related to the quality of life of tens of millions of people with visual impairment in China. Currently, the global prevalence of low vision continues to rise, and China has a large patient base of low vision. However, the accessibility of rehabilitation services remains severely inadequate, and the vast majority of people with visual disability cannot receive standardized visual rehabilition services. Based on the development history and current challenges of low vision rehabilitation globally and in China, this editorial clearly points out that clinical medical institutions are the first gateway of the low vision rehabilitation system, emphasizes the core role of ophthalmologists in the referral system and the superior efficacy and value of multidisciplinary team care, and proposes a patient-centered rehabilitation paradigm integrating science and humanity based on functional visual assessment. Meanwhile, it puts forward specific suggestions on strengthening grassroots referral coordination, accelerating the training of specialized professionals, and promoting the translation and application of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, aiming to provide practical guidance for the high-quality development of low vision rehabilitation in China.

Child and adolescent myopia has emerged as a prominent public health issue in China, characterized by trends of earlier onset and increasing severity. The prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents present substantial challenges to public health. Driven by robust national policies, several distinctive technical guidance documents have been issued in recent years within relevant professional domains. Nevertheless, notable gaps persist in the quantification of evidence quality and intervention efficacy, multidimensional combination strategies, and the provision of specific operational guidance for clinical and public health practice. In response, the Visual Health (Myopia Prevention and Control) Study Group of the Child and Adolescent Health Branch of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association convened a multidisciplinary panel comprising clinical experts, public health specialists, and methodologists engaged in clinical practice guideline development. Adhering rigorously to international standards for guideline development, the panel formulated eight clinical questions spanning three core dimensions, including environmental regulation, behavioral modification, and pharmacological/optical correction, and subsequently developed eight corresponding evidence-based recommendations. These recommendations aim to provide more precise and systematic evidence-based guidance for myopia prevention and control in clinical and public health practice, thereby enhancing the scientific validity and effectiveness of myopia management efforts in Chinese children and adolescents.