A rapid whisker-based decision underlying skilled locomotion in mice
- Department of Neuroscience, Mortimer Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, United States
Figures
Figure 1 with 1 supplement
Head-fixed obstacle avoidance in mice.
(A) Schematic of the obstacle avoidance setup. A head-fixed mouse runs on top of a wheel with a mirror mounted inside, allowing a single camera to capture two orthogonal views. A second camera …
Figure 1—figure supplement 1
Head-fixed obstacle avoidance in mice.
(A) Obstacles are engaged three times per water reward. Average running velocity as a function of position relative to the water reward (n = 20; standard deviation is shaded). Thin lines are …
Figure 2 with 1 supplement
Mice rely on whiskers to clear obstacles.
(A) Schematic of experimental paradigm. Obstacle avoidance was tested with whiskers (top row) and with trimmed whiskers (bottom row) in separate sessions. Within each session, randomly interleaved …
Figure 2—figure supplement 1
Mice rely on whiskers to clear obstacles.
(A) Height of the step over the obstacle for all paws in each sensory condition when mice had access to vision and whiskers (W+V), whiskers without vision (W), vision without whiskers (V), or …
Figure 3 with 1 supplement
A rapid decision underlies obstacle clearance.
(A). Schematic showing that the paw in swing at whisker contact (gray circle) can be placed in front of the obstacle (blue trace) or extended to clear the obstacle in one step (orange trace). (B) …
Figure 3—figure supplement 1
A rapid decision underlies obstacle clearance.
(A) At whisker contact, the foremost paw is very close to the obstacle (~32 mm; top) and will quickly intercept it (in ~63 ms; bottom) if no modifications are made. Thin colored lines show the …
Figure 4 with 1 supplement
Obstacle clearance minimally affected by barrel cortex lesions.
(A) Schematic showing locations and extent of barrel cortex lesions for all mice (n = 8) and an example coronal section for one mouse. (B) Locomotion is unaffected by contralateral barrel cortex …
Figure 4—figure supplement 1
Obstacle clearance minimally affected by barrel cortex lesions.
(A) Barrel cortex lesions were targeted by mapping barrel fields electrophysiologically (not shown) or via intrinsic imaging. (i) shows a map of barrels in S1. L4 cells labeled with GFP to indicate …
Figure 5 with 1 supplement
Obstacle avoidance affected by motor cortex manipulations.
(A–E) Unilateral muscimol injections affect basic characteristics of locomotion as well as obstacle avoidance (n = 5). Left column shows all trials and right column shows 20% of trials selected that …
Figure 5—figure supplement 1
Obstacle avoidance affected by motor cortex manipulations.
Effects of silencing motor cortex (left columns) and lesioning motor cortex (right columns) among all trials (columns 1 and 3) and trials matched for baseline locomotion at whisker contact (columns …
Figure 6 with 1 supplement
Decision-making is minimally affected by cortical manipulations.
(A) Mice still shorten or lengthen their step to avoid the obstacle following motor cortex lesions. Each trace shows kinematics for the paw in swing at whisker contact for a trial selected randomly …
Figure 6—figure supplement 1
Decision-making is minimally affected by cortical manipulations.
(A,C,H) Cross-validation accuracy for GLMs trained to predict whether mice lengthen or shorten the step of the forepaw in swing at whisker contact. The left-most bar for each condition shows the …
Author response image 1
Author response image 2
Videos
Video 1
Demonstration of the head-fixed obstacle avoidance apparatus, 3D behavioral tracking, and kinematic analysis.
Video 2
Real-time and slowed-down videos of obstacle avoidance.
Video 3
Comparison of obstacle avoidance when mice have access to whiskers and vision, whiskers only, vision only, and neither whiskers nor vision.
Video 4
Demonstration of the two behavioral strategies mice use to clear obstacles.
Videos are paused at whisker contact. The dashed gray traces show the kinematic trajectory expected if no modifications are made.
Video 5
Obstacle avoidance before and after barrel cortex lesions.
Video 6
