Reward history guides focal attention in whisker somatosensory cortex.

ABSTRACT: Prior reward is a potent cue for attentional capture, but the underlying neurobiology is largely unknown. In a whisker touch detection task, we show that mice flexibly shift attention between specific whiskers on a trial-by-trial timescale, guided by the recent history of stimulus-reward association. Two-photon calcium imaging and spike recordings reveal a robust neurobiological correlate of attention in the somatosensory cortex, boosting sensory responses to the attended whisker in L2/3 and L5, but not L4. Attentional boosting in L2/3 pyramidal cells is topographically precise and whisker-specific, and shifts receptive fields toward the attended whisker. L2/3 vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) interneurons are broadly activated by whisker stimuli, motion, and arousal but do not carry a w

SUBMITTER: Ramamurthy DL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12219055 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature