Learning enhances encoding of time and temporal surprise in mouse primary sensory cortex

Journal article

Neurons in the primary cortex carry sensory- and behavior-related information, but it remains an open question how this information emerges and intersects together during learning. Current evidence points to two possible learning-related changes: sensory information increases in the primary cortex or sensory information remains stable, but its readout efficiency in association cortices increases. We investigated this question by imaging neuronal activity in mouse primary somatosensory cortex before, during, and after learning of an object localization task. We quantified sensory- and behavior-related information and estimated how much sensory information was used to instruct perceptual choices as learning progressed. We find that sensory information increases from the start of training, while choice information is mostly present in the later stages of learning. Additionally, the readout of sensory information becomes more efficient with learning as early as in the primary sensory cortex. Together, our results highlight the importance of primary cortical neurons in perceptual learning

Authors: Rabinovich, RJ; Kato, DD; Bruno, RM

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Journal: Nature Communications
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 5504-5504
• Article number: 5504
• Publication date: 2022-09-20
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33141-y
• EISSN: 2041-1723
• ISSN: 2041-1723
• Language: English
• Keywords: Surprise; Psychology; Sensory stimulation therapy; Communication; Sensory system; Barrel cortex; Somatosensory system; Cognitive psychology; Neuroscience; Sensory cortex; Stimulus (psychology); Population; Medicine; Stimulus modality; Stimulation