Figure 1.

Anatomical diagram depicting the studied brain circuit. SC (red) innervates predominantly the ipsilaterally located nuclei of the midbrain dopaminergic system (VTA and SNc; blue). At the same time, SC innervates mainly the contralateral RMTg (orange). Sensory stimulus perceived on one side of the body (depicted as a light bulb) could control the activity of the dopaminergic system on both sides of the brain in an opposite manner. Such an imbalance of striatal dopamine release (depicted as a dopamine molecule) could bias the behavior of the animal toward the side from which sensory stimulus is received (rightward in the example shown; black arrow).