The mesencephalic locomotor region shapes decision-making during movement - Dataset and Code for Shin et al 2026

Shin et al. 2026 v1.0 — Initial Release This is the first release of Shin et al. 2026, Nature Communications (v1.0), accompanying the manuscript:The mesencephalic locomotor region shapes decision-making during movement Locomotion is known to modulate sensory processing and neural activity across the brain, yet how ongoing movement shapes decision-making remains unclear. In this work, we show that pre-cue locomotion speed systematically biases perceptual decision-making in mice performing an auditory go/no-go task. Using single-unit recordings from the mesencephalic locomotor region (MLR), we identified MLR neurons that multiplex movement kinematics and decision-related variables at the single-cell level, forming distinct clusters active during the decision-building period. Drift-diffusion modeling further revealed that the activity of these clusters tracks the rate of evidence accumulation for decision-making, and optogenetic inhibition of decision-period-active MLR neurons via Cal-Light suppressed go decision probability. Together, these results redefine the MLR from a conserved locomotor hub as a critical node in state-dependent decision-making. This repository contains the data and analysis code used to support the behavioral analyses, neural encoding models, SVM decoding, and drift diffusion modeling in the paper. If you use this data or code, please cite the associated manuscript.