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Separating cognitive and motor processes in the behaving mouse.
Munib A Hasnain1,2, Jaclyn E Birnbaum2,3, Juan Luis Ugarte Nunez1
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
Nature Neuroscience
|February 5, 2025
Summary
Cognitive processes in animals are linked to movements, but a new study shows they are distinct. Researchers isolated cognitive and motor neural dynamics, revealing separate cell populations encode each process.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Animal Behavior
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Complex animal behaviors involve cognitive processes and movements, which are strongly correlated with neural activity.
- A key question is whether cognitive and motor processes share neural mechanisms or are separable.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop methods for assessing the separability of cognitive and motor processes.
- To isolate and characterize the neural dynamics associated with distinct cognitive and motor components.
Main Methods:
- Designed a novel behavioral task in mice involving multiple cognitive processes.
- Applied a subspace decomposition technique to isolate cognitive and motor neural dynamics.
- Analyzed neural population activity to identify cell populations encoding each component.
Main Results:
- Neural dynamics previously attributed to cognition were found to be contaminated by movement-related activity.
- Isolated cognitive and motor components exhibited distinct dynamical trajectories.
- Largely separate neuronal populations were identified for encoding cognitive versus motor processes.
Conclusions:
- Cognitive and motor processes in complex behaviors are largely separable at the neural level.
- Accurate isolation of cognitive and motor dynamics is crucial for understanding neural circuit function.
- Findings inform the development of conceptual and computational models of the brain.
