Abstract

Neurons in primary sensory cortex encode a variety of stimulus features upon perceptual learning. However, it is unclear whether the acquired stimulus selectivity remains stable when the same input is perceived in a different context. Here, we monitor the activity of individual neurons in the mouse primary somatosensory cortex during reward-based texture discrimination. We track their stimulus selectivity before and after changing reward contingencies, which allows us to identify various classes of neurons. We find neurons that stably represented a texture or the upcoming behavioral choice, but the majority is dynamic. Among those, a subpopulation of neurons regains texture selectivity contingent on the associated reward value. These value-sensitive neurons forecast the onset of learning by displaying a distinct and transient increase in activity, depending on past behavioral experience. Thus, stimulus selectivity of excitatory neurons during perceptual learning is dynamic and largely relies on behavioral contingencies, even in primary sensory cortex.

Highlights

  • Neurons in primary sensory cortex encode a variety of stimulus features upon perceptual learning

  • A failure to withhold from licking was scored as a ‘false alarm’ trial (Fig. 1a and Supplementary Fig. 1)

  • Both treatments reduced the performance to chance level (Fig. 1c, d). This indicates that to solve this task mice fully rely on somatosensory input and do not use additional sensory information, and that the task involves signal processing through S1

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Summary

Introduction

Neurons in primary sensory cortex encode a variety of stimulus features upon perceptual learning. We monitor the activity of individual neurons in the mouse primary somatosensory cortex during reward-based texture discrimination. We track their stimulus selectivity before and after changing reward contingencies, which allows us to identify various classes of neurons. We monitor the shaping of stimulus selectivity for primary somatosensory cortical (S1) layer 2/3 (L2/3) neurons in mice that learn to discriminate between a rewarded and non-rewarded texture. We reassess their selectivity upon reversal learning, which reveals a substantial subset of neurons that dynamically represents textures. The ramping up of this selectivity forecasts the onset of learning

Methods
Results
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