Topic: anterior lateral motor cortex

Behavior-related neural dynamics in the frontal cortex is an emergent property of network connectivity. The network structure at the level of individual neurons, and its relationship to neural coding are largely unknown. We developed an optical method for rapid (500k pairwise connections / 30 minutes) mapping of effective connectivity in the neocortex in vivo. To this end, we combined 2-photon optogenetic stimulation of individual excitatory neurons and measurement of responses in non-stimulated neurons (‘effective connection’) using 2-photon volumetric calcium imaging. We applied this method

Persistent neural activity underlies key cognitive functions like short-term memory. To support persistent neural activity, circuits must learn to balance recurrent amplification (prolonging network time constants) with sufficient robustness to gate out perturbations in local parts of the network. It remains unclear how such persistent and robust representations emerge in neural circuits. Neurons in the mouse anterior lateral motor cortex (ALM) exhibit preparatory activity during motor planning, a robust persistent activity maintained by both hemispheres. We used longitudinal two-photon calciu

Flexible integration of sensory information in a context-dependent manner is a key cognitive process required to generate appropriate behavior. An intriguing question, then, is how the same sensory stimulus can be interpreted differently according to context in order to generate different behavioral responses. We designed a task in which mice were trained to lick for reward in response to a brief single whisker stimulus if it was preceded by a brief Go-Tone presented one second before the whisker stimulus, but not if it was preceded by a NoGo-Tone. Optogenetic inactivation of primary whisker s

Goal-directed behaviors involve coordinated activity across neurons representing different cognitive variables that guide the appropriate action selection. Here we used a novel naturalistic behavioral paradigm that does not require pre-training, which allowed studying the underlying neural activity from the very first day of behavior. This paradigm involves tongue-reaching movements towards multiple target-positions, followed by a variable reward outcome. The target was presented on a grid (typically consisting of 4x4 possible target positions) in front of the mouse’s face. We used calcium ima