Learning enhances encoding of time and temporal surprise in mouse primary sensory cortex.

ABSTRACT: Primary sensory cortex has long been believed to play a straightforward role in the initial processing of sensory information. Yet, the superficial layers of cortex overall are sparsely active, even during sensory stimulation; additionally, cortical activity is influenced by other modalities, task context, reward, and behavioral state. Our study demonstrates that reinforcement learning dramatically alters representations among longitudinally imaged neurons in superficial layers of mouse primary somatosensory cortex. Learning an object detection task recruits previously unresponsive neurons, enlarging the neuronal population sensitive to touch and behavioral choice. Cortical responses decrease upon repeated stimulus presentation outside of the behavioral task. Moreover, training improves po

SUBMITTER: Rabinovich RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9489862 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature