Read on Twitter
The brain meets a myriad behavioral demands with a limited number of neurons. Does it use the same neurons across behaviors? We addressed this question in mouse parietal cortex, where neurons are thought to be multitaskers. The results surprised us… 1/n
http://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.18.423543v1
http://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.18.423543v1
@synapticlee trained mice to perform not one but TWO visual detection tasks: (1) navigation in a virtual T-maze ( http://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42583) and (2) turning a steering wheel (similar to the @IntlBrainLab task, http://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.17.909838). Mice performed them one after the other. 2/n
While mice performed the tasks, @synapticlee recorded from hundreds of neurons in parietal cortex. To our surprise, neurons were specialized! Neurons that responded in one task were largely silent in the other, and vice versa. 3/n
This specialization was robust and consistent: neurons that specialized in one task on one day would specialize in the same task the next day.
What could it be about the task that neurons are so picky about? Is it the visual stimuli, the apparatus, the motor response? 4/n
What could it be about the task that neurons are so picky about? Is it the visual stimuli, the apparatus, the motor response? 4/n
@synapticlee got a glimpse of the answer by recording from the same neurons after the tasks, with no visual stimulus, no motor response, no task. The same neurons that fired in each task kept on being active, but only in that physical context. 5/n
So, is it the physical context that determines specificity? To this this rigorously, @synapticlee trained mice in a THIRD, hybrid task: mice steer a wheel to rotate their view in virtual reality. The answer was unequivocal: specificity depends on physical context. 6/n
So, @synapticlee discovered that neurons in parietal cortex are specialists, active only in specific physical contexts. The brain allocates different neurons to different tasks, even where neurons were thought to multitask. Read all about it: http://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.18.423543v1
