Biology subjects

Hähnke, D.

Publications and source records attributed to Hähnke, D..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Complementary prefrontal and thalamic representational dynamics during response planning

Advance contextual information can guide behavioral responses, but how prospective action representations unfold across prefrontal and thalamic neuronal populations of the cognitive control network remains unclear. Here, we trained mice on a contextual response-planning task in which auditory cues either predicted the upcoming instructed movement or left response identity unresolved until a later instruction. Predictive contexts improved accuracy and produced subthreshold, directionally biased movements, indicating that mice used contextual information before instruction onset. Extracellular recordings revealed prospective response-side information in prelimbic cortex (PL) and mediodorsal thalamus (MD), but with distinct dynamics. MD represented prospective response side earlier during the context epoch and showed a planning-related temporal advance after instruction onset. In contrast, PL exhibited enhanced instruction-epoch coding and stronger cross-epoch generalization, which could be localized to sparse neuronal subpopulations. These complementary representational dynamics suggest distinct but coordinated roles for prefrontal-thalamic circuits in using advance information to support flexible action planning.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Closed-loop sensory feedback enables fast and reliable instrumental acquisition in head-fixed mice

Instrumental learning typically requires hundreds to thousands of trials in which subjects learn to link motor responses to sensory cues. In standard rodent protocols, response accuracy is reported only at trial end, preventing subjects from correcting erroneously initiated responses. We hypothesized that within-trial, closed-loop sensory feedback would accelerate instrumental learning by providing real-time information about response correctness. Head-fixed mice performed a two-alternative forced-choice task by rotating a choice wheel in response to sensory cues. Mice received either no feedback (n = 18), auditory feedback (n = 16), or audiovisual feedback (n = 4) coupled to wheel movements. Feedback-receiving mice required significantly fewer trials to reach 70 % accuracy criterion (median: 3186, 4918 and 7329 trials for multimodal, unimodal and no feedback, respectively; p = 0.0245) and showed higher accuracy when modifying choices (expert stage: 17 %, 11 % and 9 % accuracy in trials with modified choices for multimodal, unimodal and no feedback, respectively; p=1.04x10-). Only feedback mice displayed movement refinements across training (p = 8.02x10-, p = 4.07x10-{superscript 1} and p = 0.2602 for multimodal, unimodal and no feedback, respectively). In summary, closed-loop sensory feedback accelerated instrumental acquisition, demonstrating its value as routine training protocol. HIGHLIGHTSO_LIMice provided with feedback require fewer trials to reach expert stage in an instrumental learning task C_LIO_LIMice provided with feedback perform with higher accuracy in trials involving changes of mind C_LIO_LIMovement trajectories of mice provided with feedback undergo refinement as training advances C_LIO_LISensory feedback can be used as a training aid to accelerate instrumental learning C_LI

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2024

Parcellation of the primate prefrontal cortex by cognitive control operations

Modular organization, the division of the cerebral cortex into functionally distinct subregions, is well established in the primate sensorimotor cortex, but debated in the cognitive association cortex, including the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Here, we obtained microelectrode recordings with broad spatial coverage from the lateral PFC of two rhesus monkeys performing a working memory task with distractors. We found that neighboring electrodes shared task-related oscillatory neural dynamics that were stable across recording sessions and formed spatially continuous, mesoscale clusters that also segregated by local and long-range frontoparietal connectivity, spiking activity, involvement in working memory processing stages and influence on behavioral accuracy. Remarkably, the degree of parcellation reflected the animals individual mnemonic abilities and strategies. Our findings support functional organization of the PFC by cognitive control operations rather than by the type of processed information, indicating that modularity may be a fundamental architectural principle across the primate cortex.

neuroscience↗