Pupil-linked arousal correlates with neural activity prior to sensorimotor decisions.

Sensorimotor decisions require the brain to process external information and combine it with relevant knowledge prior to actions. In this study, we explore the neural predictors of motor actions in a novel, realistic driving task designed to study decisions while driving. We show that steering behavior can be predicted from oscillatory power in the visual cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Through a spatiospectral assessment of functional connectivity during the premotor period, we identified the organization of visual cortex regions of interest into a distinct scene-processing network. Additionally, we identified a motor action selection network characterized by coherence between the ACC and DLPFC. Power during the premotor periods (specific to the theta and beta bands) correlates with pupil-linked arousal and saccade duration. We interpret our findings in the context of network-level correlations with saccade-related behavior and show that the DLPFC is a key node in arousal circuitry and in sensorimotor decisions.