Topic: neuronal encoding

Applying information theoretic measures to neuronal activity data enables the quantification of neuronal encoding quality. However, when the sample size is limited, a naïve estimation of information typically contains an upward bias, which may lead to misinterpretation of coding characteristics. This bias is exacerbated in Ca2+ imaging because of the temporal sparsity of detected Ca2+ signals. Here, we introduce methods to correct the bias in the naïve estimation of information from limited sample sizes and temporally sparse activity. We demonstrate the higher accuracy of our methods over prev

The sensorimotor cortex plays a fundamental role for animals and humans to navigate and act in complex environments. In conventional experimental approaches animals perform highly trained tasks in a trial-repetitive manner with their movements limited to ensure reproducibility of the same or similar trial conditions. These conditions limit the study of ecologically relevant foraging behavior, particularly those involving full-body movements. However, recording from freely moving animals poses significant challenges for computational analysis due to the uniqueness of each trial and the complex

Learning to identify and appropriately react to stimuli that predict threat is crucial for survival. Pavlovian fear conditioning is widely used to investigate the neuronal mechanisms of threat learning. In this study, we used fibre photometry calcium imaging in freely moving male and female mice to determine activity dynamics in nucleus accumbens (NAc), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and ventral hippocampus (vHip) during a Pavlovian fear conditioning task in which one auditory cue was paired with foot shock (CS+) and another remained unreinforced (CS-). Both cues elicited increased activity