Topic: cognitive computations

Real-world decisions often require combining different cognitive computations. Recent findings suggest that, on the one hand, these computations are distributed across the cortex. On the other hand, cortical microcircuits seem to implement them via (near) orthogonal population-activity patterns. But how are these local geometries combined at the level of cortex-wide dynamics? To answer this, we developed a new task for mice navigating in virtual reality (VR) to temporally disentangle different cognitive computations. Mice first accumulate evidence to determine the predominant color of a random

Advancements in large-scale neural recordings are now enabling opportunities to probe cognitive computations across simultaneously recorded brain regions, necessitating modeling tools for deciphering multi-region interactions. In an emerging class of dynamical models, brain-wide neural activity is reconstructed by region-specific modules that interact through communication channels and may receive additional information as inputs. These models aim to recover the effective connectome, which includes the inter-region connection diagram and the messages communicated between regions. However, with

In surveying the rich reservoir of neuronal computations and brain functions, a natural question arises: what unified characteristics influence the diverse and heterogeneous dynamical states and computations in highly recurrent cortical networks? Seminal studies suggest that large-scale information processing results from interactions between the task environment, neuronal biophysics, and cortical architecture. While experimental advances have provided detailed cortical connectivity data, i.e. the connectome, it remains unclear which are fundamental for cognitive processing. Theoretically, Rec