Synthesis of a comprehensive population code for contextual features in the awake sensory cortex

How cortical circuits build representations of complex objects is poorly understood. Individual neurons must integrate broadly over space, yet simultaneously obtain sharp tuning to specific global stimulus features. Groups of neurons identifying different global features must then assemble into a po...

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Autores principales:	Evan H Lyall, Daniel P Mossing, Scott R Pluta, Yun Wen Chu, Amir Dudai, Hillel Adesnik
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	eLife Sciences Publications Ltd 2021
Materias:	visual cortex barrel cortex sparse codes receptive field two photon calcium imaging neural coding Medicine R Science Q Biology (General) QH301-705.5
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/c3d23e86754244249d4048fba5a410e3
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:c3d23e86754244249d4048fba5a410e32021-11-17T10:29:40ZSynthesis of a comprehensive population code for contextual features in the awake sensory cortex10.7554/eLife.626872050-084Xe62687https://doaj.org/article/c3d23e86754244249d4048fba5a410e32021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://elifesciences.org/articles/62687https://doaj.org/toc/2050-084XHow cortical circuits build representations of complex objects is poorly understood. Individual neurons must integrate broadly over space, yet simultaneously obtain sharp tuning to specific global stimulus features. Groups of neurons identifying different global features must then assemble into a population that forms a comprehensive code for these global stimulus properties. Although the logic for how single neurons summate over their spatial inputs has been well explored in anesthetized animals, how large groups of neurons compose a flexible population code of higher-order features in awake animals is not known. To address this question, we probed the integration and population coding of higher-order stimuli in the somatosensory and visual cortices of awake mice using two-photon calcium imaging across cortical layers. We developed a novel tactile stimulator that allowed the precise measurement of spatial summation even in actively whisking mice. Using this system, we found a sparse but comprehensive population code for higher-order tactile features that depends on a heterogeneous and neuron-specific logic of spatial summation beyond the receptive field. Different somatosensory cortical neurons summed specific combinations of sensory inputs supra-linearly, but integrated other inputs sub-linearly, leading to selective responses to higher-order features. Visual cortical populations employed a nearly identical scheme to generate a comprehensive population code for contextual stimuli. These results suggest that a heterogeneous logic of input-specific supra-linear summation may represent a widespread cortical mechanism for the synthesis of sparse higher-order feature codes in neural populations. This may explain how the brain exploits the thalamocortical expansion of dimensionality to encode arbitrary complex features of sensory stimuli.Evan H LyallDaniel P MossingScott R PlutaYun Wen ChuAmir DudaiHillel AdesnikeLife Sciences Publications Ltdarticlevisual cortexbarrel cortexsparse codesreceptive fieldtwo photon calcium imagingneural codingMedicineRScienceQBiology (General)QH301-705.5ENeLife, Vol 10 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	visual cortex barrel cortex sparse codes receptive field two photon calcium imaging neural coding Medicine R Science Q Biology (General) QH301-705.5
spellingShingle	visual cortex barrel cortex sparse codes receptive field two photon calcium imaging neural coding Medicine R Science Q Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Evan H Lyall Daniel P Mossing Scott R Pluta Yun Wen Chu Amir Dudai Hillel Adesnik Synthesis of a comprehensive population code for contextual features in the awake sensory cortex
description	How cortical circuits build representations of complex objects is poorly understood. Individual neurons must integrate broadly over space, yet simultaneously obtain sharp tuning to specific global stimulus features. Groups of neurons identifying different global features must then assemble into a population that forms a comprehensive code for these global stimulus properties. Although the logic for how single neurons summate over their spatial inputs has been well explored in anesthetized animals, how large groups of neurons compose a flexible population code of higher-order features in awake animals is not known. To address this question, we probed the integration and population coding of higher-order stimuli in the somatosensory and visual cortices of awake mice using two-photon calcium imaging across cortical layers. We developed a novel tactile stimulator that allowed the precise measurement of spatial summation even in actively whisking mice. Using this system, we found a sparse but comprehensive population code for higher-order tactile features that depends on a heterogeneous and neuron-specific logic of spatial summation beyond the receptive field. Different somatosensory cortical neurons summed specific combinations of sensory inputs supra-linearly, but integrated other inputs sub-linearly, leading to selective responses to higher-order features. Visual cortical populations employed a nearly identical scheme to generate a comprehensive population code for contextual stimuli. These results suggest that a heterogeneous logic of input-specific supra-linear summation may represent a widespread cortical mechanism for the synthesis of sparse higher-order feature codes in neural populations. This may explain how the brain exploits the thalamocortical expansion of dimensionality to encode arbitrary complex features of sensory stimuli.
format	article
author	Evan H Lyall Daniel P Mossing Scott R Pluta Yun Wen Chu Amir Dudai Hillel Adesnik
author_facet	Evan H Lyall Daniel P Mossing Scott R Pluta Yun Wen Chu Amir Dudai Hillel Adesnik
author_sort	Evan H Lyall
title	Synthesis of a comprehensive population code for contextual features in the awake sensory cortex
title_short	Synthesis of a comprehensive population code for contextual features in the awake sensory cortex
title_full	Synthesis of a comprehensive population code for contextual features in the awake sensory cortex
title_fullStr	Synthesis of a comprehensive population code for contextual features in the awake sensory cortex
title_full_unstemmed	Synthesis of a comprehensive population code for contextual features in the awake sensory cortex
title_sort	synthesis of a comprehensive population code for contextual features in the awake sensory cortex
publisher	eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/c3d23e86754244249d4048fba5a410e3
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Synthesis of a comprehensive population code for contextual features in the awake sensory cortex

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