A hallmark of the mammalian brain is the ability to link relevant external events to specific actions based on internal goals.

In this talk, I will first present recent findings revealing a brain-wide distributed network of areas which learns to transform sensation into action by orthogonalizing movement and deliberation population dynamics. Within the deliberation population dynamics a sparse subset of neurons couple sensory evidence encoding with movement preparatory dynamics.

I will then present work demonstrating that this sensorimotor transformation can be flexibly gated – based on the animals’ internal goals – by a novel functional frontal cortical area (located at the anterior tip of secondary motor cortex). This area exercises cognitive control by clamping striatal population dynamics, to effectively move sensory evidence dynamics in and out of an action generating state based on the animals internal goals.

Together, these findings provide a brain-wide account of how sensation is transformed into action and how this can be flexibly gated through a cortico-striatal clamping mechanism.