Sensory experience steers representational drift in mouse visual cortex

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Computational Neuroscience
• Systems Neuroscience

Background:

• Representational drift, the continuous change in neuronal representations, is observed across brain regions.
• The causes of representational drift, whether sensory experience-induced synaptic plasticity or intrinsic synaptic volatility, remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the mechanisms underlying representational drift in the primary visual cortex.
• To determine the relative contributions of synaptic plasticity and intrinsic synaptic volatility to neuronal representational changes.
• To explore how sensory experience influences the direction and magnitude of representational drift.

Main Methods:

• Chronic two-photon calcium imaging in the primary visual cortex of female mice.
• Utilizing cylinder lens goggles to restrict visual input to a narrow range of orientations.
• Employing a network model to simulate neuronal dynamics and synaptic plasticity.

Main Results:

• Individual neuron preferred stimulus orientation drifts slowly over weeks.
• The direction of drift, not its magnitude, is significantly biased by the statistics of visual input.
• Network models suggest synaptic volatility is a primary driver of drift, modulated by experience-dependent Hebbian plasticity.

Conclusions:

• Synaptic volatility drives representational drift, while experience-driven Hebbian plasticity stabilizes neuronal representations.
• Under sensory deprivation, Hebbian mechanisms facilitate adaptation.
• Hebbian synaptic plasticity actively steers representational drift to align with environmental statistics.