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The Spatial Structure of Neural Encoding in Mouse Posterior Cortex during Navigation.

Matthias Minderer¹, Kristen D Brown¹, Christopher D Harvey¹

¹Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

|February 18, 2019

Summary

The mouse posterior cortex contains functional areas for navigation, with neural activity smoothly varying across space rather than by traditional borders. This reveals how brain regions integrate sensory and movement information for behavior.

Keywords:

calcium imaging cortical architecture mouse cortex navigation optogenetics parietal cortex virtual reality visual cortex

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Modeling the Functional Network for Spatial Navigation in the Human Brain

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Systems Neuroscience
Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

Navigation relies on multiple cortical regions like visual, parietal, and retrosplenial cortices.
Previous studies mapped these regions anatomically and with sensory stimuli, but their combined role in behavior is less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the distribution and integration of behaviorally driven neural activity across posterior cortical areas.
To reveal the functional organization of association regions based on neural activity during behavior.

Main Methods:

Dense single-neuron activity sampling across the mouse posterior cortex.
Development of unbiased methods to link neural activity to behavior and anatomical space.
Analysis of spatial variations in the encoding of behavior-related features.

Main Results:

Most of the posterior cortex encoded various behavior-related features, with spatial variations in encoding strength.
Distinct functional areas emerged based solely on behaviorally relevant neural activity.
Posterior parietal cortex showed the strongest multimodal representations, integrating sensory and movement signals.

Conclusions:

The posterior cortex exhibits functional structure defined by behaviorally relevant neural activity, not solely by anatomical or retinotopic borders.
Neural representations of behavioral features vary smoothly across space within association regions.
This spatial organization facilitates the integration of multimodal information for navigation and behavior.