Mice

…in vivo two-photon calcium imaging in mice, behavioural assays and computational modelling to track how learning-driven changes emerge in these early circuits and how they shape perception. The post sits in the School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, within a Leeds neuroscience community of more than 44 research labs. Grade 7, £41,064–£48,82

Animals use previous knowledge to flexibly guide behaviour, quickly learning to respond appropriately to novel stimuli, for example using rewards as a teaching signal. Task-relevant information and behavioural states are represented globally in the brain, which suggests distributed representations during sensorimotor learning. However, these brain-wide representations have been measured in distinct expert or naive animals with ”stationary” representations. It remains unclear how de novo learning of a sensorimotor transformation involves distributed, parallel activity throughout the brain. To a

Predatory behavior is crucial for survival and fitness in many species, evolving through complex interactions of genetics, adaptation, and learning. This interplay of innate and acquired neural mechanisms makes predation a rich subject for neuroscientific and neuroethological investigation. Current approaches to studying prey-capture use simple, barren setups that limit our understanding of how realistic environmental complexity impacts this process. This work presents both an experimental approach and analytical computational tools suitable to address these limitations. This study explores ho

…two-alternate force choice task, mice have shown significant variability in learning dynamics despite highly standar

…the cursor on a screen, we show that mice develop an active sensing strategy in a visual perceptual decision-making task (The International Brian Laboratory, 2021). We demonstrate that mice wiggle a wheel that controls the movement of a visual stimulus during low contrast trials (6.25\%). Across N = 213 mice, we show that the low visual contrast accuracy increases by 9.0\% as wiggling increases. Moreover, mice wiggle the wheel at the temporal frequency

…reconstructions of videos presented to mice, from the activity of neurons in their visual cortex. With our method of video

Animals can learn to repeat actions that lead to rewards (model-free learning). However, animals can also learn about environmental structure without receiving immediate and explicit rewards (latent learning), and then use this knowledge to guide future reward-seeking behavior efficiently. How the brain accomplishes this is not clear, in part due to limitations in existing behavioral tasks to study latent learning in rodents. In particular, traditional latent learning tasks suffer from their “one-shot” characteristics, such that learning is typically performed and tested in one environment, pr

…because we regularly use animals, like mice or monkeys, as models for humans experiencing neurobiological conditions in which persistence is compromised. Here, we compared humans with mice and monkeys in harmonised

…in a hidden-target foraging task for mice in which animals learn to intercept an uncued target location within an open arena. To study the computational underpinnings of this learning, we build an agent that controls its speed and heading over time via a pre-sp

…arise, we trained head-fixed mice to play a zero-sum game, Matching Pennies, in which the optimal behaviour against a rational agent is to choose between actions with equal probability. On each trial, mice chose between two available actions: lick left or right. A computer opponent predicted each animal’s upcoming choice by searching for statistical regularities in their choice and reward history. If mice remained unpredictable against

…stimuli on freezing responses in mice.

…of neurobiological data of human and mice, with a selection of publicly available gene expression and connectivity da

Animals and humans adapt to environmental changes by encoding prior experiences. While classical conditioning paradigms like fear conditioning have been the main focus in the learning and memory field, other forms of associative learning are gaining attention. One example is higher-order conditioning, mediated learning, which allows non-reinforced neutral stimuli to induce attraction or aversion through associations with directly reinforced cues. In rodents, sensory preconditioning, and second-order conditioning tasks have been used to assess higher-order conditioning. In this study, we develo

In vertebrates, the whole body postural control is mainly achieved by motor reflexes of vestibular source. The responsible excitatory vestibulospinal (VS) pathways have been described in a large variety of species and show striking anatomical and functional resemblances despite strong biomechanical dissimilarities. Here, we investigate in two phylogenetically distant species whether the inhibitory networks surrounding these VS pathways may orchestrate vestibular-originating reflexes to possibly match them to specific biomechanics. Combining various anatomical techniques, we demonstrate the exi

Investigation of social behavior in mice is increasingly relevant to understand associated brain circuits and thereby develop treatments for psychiatric symptoms such as social withdrawal. Importantly, a data-driven description of social behavior and how the behavioral repertoire of mice differs in solitary vs. social context is lacking. Here, we aim to identify, in a data-driven manner, recurring behavioral patterns (“syllables”) that are unique to social and solitary contexts.We recorded videos of male C57BL/6j mice, in two epochs of 90 minutes duration, either in a social context (n=4) or i

…us to study social hierarchies in mice over extended period of time (e.g., 6 weeks). The experiment began with 3 groups of

…in the context of reversal learning in mice, complemented by a simulated analysis of synaptic remodeling in a recurrent neural network.In our experiment, mice were trained to discriminate between two stimuli in a go/no-go task, followed by a retention test after intervals of either 2 or 16 days. This phase was succeeded by reversal learning, where the stimulus contingencies were switched. We observed that mic

…decision-making paradigm (SDM) in mice in which an observer can learn from a demonstrator how to share a reward with their conspecifics. Following observation,

…Restricting such interaction in mice lead to the observation of specific separation-induced social communication.Here, we separated sex- and age-matched mice from each other using a transparent Plexiglas divider containing a porous section at its bottom. Following this separation phase, the divider was removed, and mice were allowed to freely interact with one another. During both the separation and unification phases audio and video were recorded. Separated mice emitted a set of vocalizations d

…In contrast, eye movements in mice have been thought to mainly coordinate eye-head coupling, rather than actively select visual input, due to the absence of a retinal fovea and their reliance on non-visual senses. But does this hold true during naturalistic behaviour?To study mouse eye movements in a naturalistic context featuring self-initiated visual flow and the need for visual target tracking, we designed a foraging task presented in a virtual reality, projected onto a 210-degree immersive environment (Fig1A). The saccades w

…a cued auditory dual choice task in mice. We did Ca imaging in the ALM and used ChR2 for excitation of neurons in the indirect pathway. We discovered that optogenetic manipulation's impact varied with the animal's past decisions. Notably, trials following the same choice were less influenced by optogenetic stimulation, suggesting a form of neural adaptation or memory effect within the circuit. Our analysis shows distinct activity patterns in the

…serial reversal learning tasks in mice, in general, are time-consuming and labor intensive, limiting its broader application. To address thi

Throughout our lifetime, we are constantly approaching or avoiding situations such as places associated with positive or negative outcomes, respectively. However, individuals are often confronted to a relative choice between two situations holding negative outcomes of different intensities, leading them to choose the least bad option. While extensive work focused on appetitive relative value coding, surprisingly little is known about the neural processes underlying relative value coding in an aversive context. To understand how animals make relative aversive choices, it is crucial to identify

…this, we observed the behavior of mice during a novel object recognition task and a spontaneous alternation task under vehicle/ramelteon treatment. When ramelteon was administered immediately before training in the novel object recognition task, the object memory was improved, suggesting a specific role of ramelteon in facilitating object recognition memory acquisition. Additionally