The impact of bilateral ongoing activity on evoked responses in mouse cortex

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Abstract

In the absence of external stimuli or overt behavior, the activity of the left and right cortical hemispheres shows fluctuations that are largely bilateral. Here we show that these fluctuations are largely responsible for the variability observed in cortical responses to sensory stimuli. Using widefield imaging of voltage and calcium signals, we measured activity in the cortex of mice performing a visual detection task. Bilateral fluctuations invested all areas, particularly those closest to the midline. Activity was less bilateral in the monocular region of primary visual cortex and, especially during task engagement, in secondary motor cortex. Ongoing bilateral fluctuations dominated unilateral visual responses, and interacted additively with them, explaining much of the variance in trial-by-trial activity. Even though these fluctuations occurred in regions necessary for the task, they did not affect detection behavior. We conclude that bilateral ongoing activity continues during visual stimulation and has a powerful additive impact on visual responses.

Data availability

Data has been deposited to Dryad Digital Repository under the doi:10.5061/dryad.rd00gk7

The following data sets were generated

(2019) Data from: The impact of bilateral ongoing activity on evoked responses in mouse cortex
Dryad Digital Repository, 10.5061/dryad.rd00gk7.

https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rd00gk7

Article and author information

Author details

Daisuke Shimaoka

UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, United Kingdom

For correspondence
daisuke.shimaoka@ucl.ac.uk

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Nicholas A Steinmetz

UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7029-2908
Kenneth D Harris

UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-5930-6456
Matteo Carandini

UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, United Kingdom

For correspondence
m.carandini@ucl.ac.uk

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4880-7682

Funding

Wellcome (108726)

Kenneth D Harris
Matteo Carandini

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

Daisuke Shimaoka

Human Frontier Science Program (LT001071/2015-L)

Nicholas A Steinmetz

Marie Skłodowska-Curie (656528)

Nicholas A Steinmetz

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: Experimental procedures were conducted according to the UK Animals ScientificProcedures Act (1986), under personal and project (70/8021) licenses released by the Home Office following appropriate ethics review.

Copyright

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.