A cortical circuit for orchestrating oromanual food manipulation

The seamless coordination of hand and mouth during feeding is a sophisticated motor skill characteristic of rodents and primates. While spinal and brainstem circuits mediate elemental forelimb and orofacial actions, whether dedicated neocortical circuits assemble these actions into ethological feeding movements remains unclear. Through systematic optogenetic screening, we identify the rostral forelimb-orofacial area (RFO), where activation of either pyramidal tract (PT^Fezf2) or intratelencephalic (IT^PlxnD1) neurons elicits coordinated forelimb and orofacial movements resembling natural eating. RFO connects reciprocally with forelimb and orofacial sensorimotor cortices: while PTs^Fezf2 project to subcortical motor centers driving effector movements, ITs^PlxnD1 target cortical areas and ventrolateral striatum mediating oromanual coordination. During free-moving eating behaviors, activities of both PTs^Fezf2 and ITs^PlxnD1 are correlated with oromanual manipulation, yet silencing reveals distinct functions: PTs^Fezf2 for dexterous hand-mouth movements and ITs^PlxnD1 for their temporal coordination. These findings define a cell-type-specific motor cortical circuit that orchestrates the multi-effector coordination underlying natural feeding.