Morcos, A. S. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2022

A distributed and efficient population code of mixed selectivity neurons for flexible navigation decisions

Decision-making requires flexibility to rapidly switch sensorimotor associations depending on behavioral goals stored in memory. We identified cortical areas and neural activity patterns that mediate this flexibility during virtual-navigation, where mice switched navigation toward or away from a visual cue depending on its match to a remembered cue. An optogenetics screen identified V1, posterior parietal cortex (PPC), and retrosplenial cortex (RSC) as necessary for accurate decisions. Calcium imaging revealed neurons that can mediate rapid sensorimotor switching by encoding a conjunction of a current and remembered visual cue that predicted the mouses navigational choice from trial-to-trial. Their activity formed efficient population codes before correct, but not incorrect, choices. These neurons were distributed across posterior cortex, even V1, but were densest in RSC and sparsest in PPC. We propose the flexibility of navigation decisions arises from neurons that mix visual and memory information within a visual-parietal-retrosplenial network, centered in RSC.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Correlations enhance the behavioral readout of neural population activity in association cortex

The spatiotemporal structure of activity in populations of neurons is critical for accurate perception and behavior. Experimental and theoretical studies have focused on "noise" correlations - trial-to-trial covariations in neural activity for a given stimulus - as a key feature of population activity structure. Much work has shown that these correlations limit the stimulus information encoded by a population of neurons, leading to the widely-held prediction that correlations are detrimental for perceptual discrimination behaviors. However, this prediction relies on an untested assumption: that the neural mechanisms that read out sensory information to inform behavior depend only on a populations total stimulus information independently of how correlations constrain this information across neurons or time. Here we make the critical advance of simultaneously studying how correlations affect both the encoding and the readout of sensory information. We analyzed calcium imaging data from mouse posterior parietal cortex during two perceptual discrimination tasks. Correlations limited the ability to encode stimulus information, but (seemingly paradoxically) correlations were higher when mice made correct choices than when they made errors. On a single-trial basis, a mouses behavioral choice depended not only on the stimulus information in the activity of the population as a whole, but unexpectedly also on the consistency of information across neurons and time. Because correlations increased information consistency, sensory information was more efficiently converted into a behavioral choice in the presence of correlations. Given this enhanced-by-consistency readout, we estimated that correlations produced a behavioral benefit that compensated or overcame their detrimental information-limiting effects. These results call for a re-evaluation of the role of correlated neural activity, and suggest that correlations in association cortex can benefit task performance even if they decrease sensory information.

neuroscience↗