Neural coding in barrel cortex during whisker-guided locomotion

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Abstract

Animals seek out relevant information by moving through a dynamic world, but sensory systems are usually studied under highly constrained and passive conditions that may not probe important dimensions of the neural code. Here we explored neural coding in the barrel cortex of head-fixed mice that tracked walls with their whiskers in tactile virtual reality. Optogenetic manipulations revealed that barrel cortex plays a role in wall-tracking. Closed-loop optogenetic control of layer 4 neurons can substitute for whisker-object contact to guide behavior resembling wall tracking. We measured neural activity using two-photon calcium imaging and extracellular recordings. Neurons were tuned to the distance between the animal snout and the contralateral wall, with monotonic, unimodal, and multimodal tuning curves. This rich representation of object location in the barrel cortex could not be predicted based on simple stimulus-response relationships involving individual whiskers and likely emerges within cortical circuits.

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Nicholas James Sofroniew

Janelia Research Center, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Yurii A Vlasov

Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Samuel Andrew Hires

Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Jeremy Freeman

Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Karel Svoboda

Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States

For correspondence
svobodak@janelia.hhmi.org

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All procedures were in accordance with protocols approved by the Janelia Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. (IACUC 14-115)

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.