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Neural ensemble dynamics of auditory thalamus upon sensory learning

Masashi Hasegawa, Ziyan Huang, Jan Gründemann

Date / Location: Sunday, 10 July 2022 / S01-021
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Sensory cortices receive and process feedforward uni- and multisensory information from the thalamus to guide perception and behaviours. However, so far, the neural coding strategies of sensory thalamic nuclei that precede cortex remain poorly understood on both, the single cell as well as the population level. Here, we established a gradient refractive index (GRIN) lens-based in vivo two-photon calcium imaging approach to monitor the activity of large populations of individual neurons in auditory thalamus (medial geniculate body, MGB) in awake mice during a sensory learning paradigm. Using a go/no-go task where the animals associated auditory or visual stimuli with a reward, we followed the same cells across weeks and identified distinct ensembles of MGB neurons that differentially encode the reward-contingency of the sensory stimuli as well as task-features. We found distinct classes of auditory thalamus neurons that exhibit plasticity to the go or no-go stimuli, both dependent or independent of the sensory modality. Additionally, we found a class of neurons that predicts the stimulus outcome by ramping their activity during the go stimulus and exhibit persistent calcium responses during the delay period preceding the reward, which may maintain the stimulus information and instruct the reward-related action. Our findings support the view that sensory thalamic nuclei are more than a mere sensory relay and contribute actively to the systemwide computation of cognitive processes in a bottom-up fashion.