Most ventral pallidal cholinergic neurons are cortically projecting bursting basal forebrain cholinergic neurons

The ventral pallidum (VP) lies at the intersection of basal ganglia and basal forebrain circuitry, possessing attributes of both major subcortical systems. Basal forebrain cholinergic neurons are rapidly recruited by reinforcement feedback and project to cortical and subcortical forebrain targets; in contrast, striatal cholinergic cells are local interneurons exhibiting classical pause-burst responses to rewards. However, VP cholinergic neurons (VPCNs) are less characterized, and it is unclear whether basal forebrain and striatal type cholinergic neurons mix in the VP. Therefore, we performed anterograde and mono-transsynaptic retrograde labeling, in vitro acute slice recordings and bulk calcium recordings of VPCNs. We found that VPCNs broadly interact with the affective circuitry that processes rewards and punishments, targeting the basolateral amygdala, the nucleus accumbens, the medial prefrontal cortex and the lateral habenula, while receiving inputs from the nucleus accumbens, hypothalamus, central amygdala, bed nucleus of stria terminalis and the ventral tegmental area. Bulk calcium recordings revealed VPCN responses to rewards, punishments and reward-predicting cues, like those of the horizontal diagonal band of Broca of the basal forebrain. Acute slice recordings showed that most VPCNs resembled the bursting type of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons (BFCNs), while a few of them were of the regular rhythmic type, which sharply differentiated most VPCNs from striatal cholinergic interneurons. These results were confirmed by in vivo electrophysiological recordings of putative VPCNs largely resembling bursting BFCNs. We conclude that most VPCNs are BFCNs with specialized connectivity to relay aversive and appetitive stimuli to the reinforcement circuitry, possibly implicated in mood disorders and addiction.