Abstract
How does the brain internally represent a sequence of sensory information that jointly drives a decision-making behavior? Studies of perceptual decision-making have often assumed that sensory cortices provide noisy but otherwise veridical sensory inputs to downstream processes that accumulate and drive decisions. However, sensory processing in even the earliest sensory cortices can be systematically modified by various external and internal contexts. We recorded from neuronal populations across posterior cortex as mice performed a navigational decision-making task based on accumulating randomly timed pulses of visual evidence. Even in V1, only a small fraction of active neurons had sensory-like responses time-locked to each pulse. Here, we focus on how these 'cue-locked' neurons exhibited a variety of amplitude modulations from sensory to cognitive, notably by choice and accumulated evidence. These task-related modulations affected a large fraction of cue-locked neurons across posterior cortex, suggesting that future models of behavior should account for such influences.
Highlights
As sensory information about the world is often noisy and/or ambiguous, an evidence accumulation process for increasing signal-to-noise ratio is thought to be fundamental to perceptual decision-making
The sensory detection stage has a predominantly feedforward role, i.e. providing input to but not otherwise involved in accumulation and decision formation. Another large body of literature has demonstrated that sensory processing in even the earliest sensory cortices can be modified by various external and internal contexts, including motor feedback, temporal statistics, learned associations, and attentional control
Predictive processing theories propose that visual processing intricately incorporates multiple external and internal contextual information, in a continuous loop of hypothesis formation and checking
Summary
As sensory information about the world is often noisy and/or ambiguous, an evidence accumulation process for increasing signal-to-noise ratio is thought to be fundamental to perceptual decision-making. Hanks 2016; Caballero, Humphries, and Gurney 2018) In this picture, the sensory detection stage has a predominantly feedforward role, i.e. providing input to but not otherwise involved in accumulation and decision formation. The sensory detection stage has a predominantly feedforward role, i.e. providing input to but not otherwise involved in accumulation and decision formation Another large body of literature has demonstrated that sensory processing in even the earliest sensory cortices can be modified by various external and internal contexts, including motor feedback, temporal statistics, learned associations, and attentional control 2017; Niell and Stryker 2010; Saleem et al 2013; Shuler and Bear 2006; Fiser et al 2016; Haefner, Berkes, and Fiser 2016; Lee and Mumford 2003; Zhang et al 2014; Saleem et al.2018; Makino and Komiyama 2015; Keller, Bonhoeffer, and Hübener 2012; Poort et al. Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University; Princeton NJ 08544; USA. Feedback-based gain control of sensory responses has been suggested as an important mechanism for enhancing behaviorally relevant signals, while suppressing irrelevant signals (Manita et al.2015; Hillyard, Vogel, and Luck 1998; Harris and Thiele 2011; Azim and Seki 2019; Douglas and Martin 2007; Ahissar and Kleinfeld 2003)
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