Mesoscale brain dynamics reorganizes and stabilizes during learning

Adaptive behavior is coordinated by neuronal networks that are distributed across multiple brain regions. How cross-regional interactions reorganize during learning remains elusive. We applied multi-fiber photometry to chronically record simultaneous activity of 12-48 mouse brain regions while mice learned a tactile discrimination task. We found that with learning most regions shifted their peak activity from reward-related action to the reward-predicting stimulus. We corroborated this finding by functional connectivity estimation using transfer entropy, which revealed growth and stabilization of mesoscale networks encompassing basal ganglia, thalamus, cortex, and hippocampus, especially during stimulus presentation. The internal globus pallidus, ventromedial thalamus, and several regions in frontal cortex emerged as hub regions. Our results highlight the cooperative action of distributed brain regions to establish goal-oriented mesoscale network dynamics during learning.

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Auditory Temporal Order Perception in Younger and Older Adults

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jslhr.4105.1052 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 41 (5) ◽

pp. 1052-1060 ◽

Cited By ~ 42

Author(s):

Peter J. Fitzgibbons ◽

Sandra Gordon-Salant

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Temporal Processing ◽

Discrimination Task ◽

Temporal Order ◽

Stimulus Presentation ◽

Complex Stimulus ◽

Frequency Range ◽

Identification Task ◽

Relative Pitch ◽

Single Sequence

This investigation examined the abilities of younger and older listeners to discriminate and identify temporal order of sounds presented in tonal sequences. It was hypothesized that older listeners would exhibit greater difficulty than younger listeners on both temporal processing tasks, particularly for complex stimulus patterns. It was also anticipated that tone order discrimination would be easier than tone order identification for all listeners. Listeners were younger and older adults with either normal hearing or mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing losses. Stimuli were temporally contiguous three-tone sequences within a 1/3 octave frequency range centered at 4000 Hz. For the discrimination task, listeners discerned differences between standard and comparison stimulus sequences that varied in tonal temporal order. For the identification task, listeners identified tone order of a single sequence using labels of relative pitch. Older listeners performed more poorly than younger listeners on the discrimination task for the more complex pitch patterns and on the identification task for faster stimulus presentation rates. The results also showed that order discrimination is easier than order identification for all listeners. The effects of hearing loss on the ordering tasks were minimal.

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Responses of monkey inferior temporal neurons to luminance-, motion-, and texture-defined gratings

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.1995.73.4.1341 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 73 (4) ◽

pp. 1341-1354 ◽

Cited By ~ 54

Author(s):

G. Sary ◽

R. Vogels ◽

G. Kovacs ◽

G. A. Orban

Keyword(s):

Visual Perception ◽

Relative Motion ◽

Discrimination Task ◽

Stimulus Presentation ◽

Response Strength ◽

The Other ◽

Orientation Discrimination ◽

Macaque Monkeys ◽

Tuning Width ◽

Visual Cortical

1. We recorded from neurons responsive to gratings in the inferior temporal (IT) cortices of macaque monkeys. One of the monkeys performed an orientation discrimination task; the other maintained fixation during stimulus presentation. Stimuli consisted of gratings based on discontinuities in luminance, relative motion, and texture. 2. IT cells responded well to gratings defined solely by relative motion, implying either direct or indirect motion input into IT, an area that is part of the ventral visual cortical pathway. 3. Response strength in general did not depend on the cue used to define the gratings. Latency values observed for the two static grating types (luminance- and texture-defined gratings) were similar, but significantly shorter than those measured for the kinetic gratings. 4. Stimulus orientation had a significant effect in 27%, 27%, and 9% of the cells tested with luminance-, kinetic-, and texture-defined gratings, respectively. 5. Only a small proportion of cells were orientation sensitive for more than one defining cue. The average preferred orientation for luminance and kinetic gratings matched; the tuning width was similar for the two cues. 6. Our results indicate that IT cells may contribute to cue-invariant coding of boundaries and edges. We discuss the relevance of these results to visual perception.

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Stable readout of observed actions from format-dependent activity of monkey’s anterior intraparietal neurons

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.2007018117 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 117 (28) ◽

pp. 16596-16605 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Marco Lanzilotto ◽

Monica Maranesi ◽

Alessandro Livi ◽

Carolina Giulia Ferroni ◽

Guy A. Orban ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Stimulus Presentation ◽

Visual Presentation ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Visual Features ◽

Large Network ◽

Population Code ◽

Dynamic Changes ◽

Body Postures ◽

Dependent Activity ◽

Presentation Formats

Humans accurately identify observed actions despite large dynamic changes in their retinal images and a variety of visual presentation formats. A large network of brain regions in primates participates in the processing of others’ actions, with the anterior intraparietal area (AIP) playing a major role in routing information about observed manipulative actions (OMAs) to the other nodes of the network. This study investigated whether the AIP also contributes to invariant coding of OMAs across different visual formats. We recorded AIP neuronal activity from two macaques while they observed videos portraying seven manipulative actions (drag, drop, grasp, push, roll, rotate, squeeze) in four visual formats. Each format resulted from the combination of two actor’s body postures (standing, sitting) and two viewpoints (lateral, frontal). Out of 297 recorded units, 38% were OMA-selective in at least one format. Robust population code for viewpoint and actor’s body posture emerged shortly after stimulus presentation, followed by OMA selectivity. Although we found no fully invariant OMA-selective neuron, we discovered a population code that allowed us to classify action exemplars irrespective of the visual format. This code depends on a multiplicative mixing of signals about OMA identity and visual format, particularly evidenced by a set of units maintaining a relatively stable OMA selectivity across formats despite considerable rescaling of their firing rate depending on the visual specificities of each format. These findings suggest that the AIP integrates format-dependent information and the visual features of others’ actions, leading to a stable readout of observed manipulative action identity.

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Psychophysically scaled cue differences, learning rate, and attentional strategies in a tactile discrimination task

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology ◽

10.1016/0022-0965(72)90091-4 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 283-302 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Ann L. Brown ◽

Keith G. Scott ◽

Richard C. Urbano

Keyword(s):

Discrimination Task ◽

Learning Rate ◽

Tactile Discrimination ◽

Attentional Strategies

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Comparison of MEG and BOLD Signals in a Visual-Tactile Discrimination Task

Frontiers in Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.06.00442 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

Author(s):

Braun Christoph

Keyword(s):

Discrimination Task ◽

Tactile Discrimination

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Modular origins of high-amplitude cofluctuations in fine-scale functional connectivity dynamics

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.2109380118 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 118 (46) ◽

pp. e2109380118

Author(s):

Maria Pope ◽

Makoto Fukushima ◽

Richard F. Betzel ◽

Olaf Sporns

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Functional Neuroimaging ◽

Empirical Studies ◽

Structural Connectivity ◽

Spatial Arrangement ◽

High Amplitude ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Brain Dynamics ◽

Modular Organization ◽

Fine Scale

The topology of structural brain networks shapes brain dynamics, including the correlation structure of brain activity (functional connectivity) as estimated from functional neuroimaging data. Empirical studies have shown that functional connectivity fluctuates over time, exhibiting patterns that vary in the spatial arrangement of correlations among segregated functional systems. Recently, an exact decomposition of functional connectivity into frame-wise contributions has revealed fine-scale dynamics that are punctuated by brief and intermittent episodes (events) of high-amplitude cofluctuations involving large sets of brain regions. Their origin is currently unclear. Here, we demonstrate that similar episodes readily appear in silico using computational simulations of whole-brain dynamics. As in empirical data, simulated events contribute disproportionately to long-time functional connectivity, involve recurrence of patterned cofluctuations, and can be clustered into distinct families. Importantly, comparison of event-related patterns of cofluctuations to underlying patterns of structural connectivity reveals that modular organization present in the coupling matrix shapes patterns of event-related cofluctuations. Our work suggests that brief, intermittent events in functional dynamics are partly shaped by modular organization of structural connectivity.

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Responses to Rare Visual Target and Distractor Stimuli Using Event-Related fMRI

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.2000.83.5.3133 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 83 (5) ◽

pp. 3133-3139 ◽

Cited By ~ 216

Author(s):

Vincent P. Clark ◽

Sean Fannon ◽

Song Lai ◽

Randall Benson ◽

Lance Bauer

Keyword(s):

Brain Activity ◽

Temporal Cortex ◽

Stimulus Presentation ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Anterior Cingulate ◽

Fmri Signal ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Evoked Activity ◽

Anatomic Locations

Previous studies have found that the P300 or P3 event-related potential (ERP) component is useful in the diagnosis and treatment of many disorders that influence CNS function. However, the anatomic locations of brain regions involved in this response are not precisely known. In the present event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, methods of stimulus presentation, data acquisition, and data analysis were optimized for the detection of brain activity in response to stimuli presented in the three-stimulus oddball task. This paradigm involves the interleaved, pseudorandom presentation of single block-letter target and distractor stimuli that previously were found to generate the P3b and P3a ERP subcomponents, respectively, and frequent standard stimuli. Target stimuli evoked fMRI signal increases in multiple brain regions including the thalamus, the bilateral cerebellum, and the occipital-temporal cortex as well as bilateral superior, medial, inferior frontal, inferior parietal, superior temporal, precentral, postcentral, cingulate, insular, left middle temporal, and right middle frontal gyri. Distractor stimuli evoked an fMRI signal change bilaterally in inferior anterior cingulate, medial frontal, inferior frontal, and right superior frontal gyri, with additional activity in bilateral inferior parietal lobules, lateral cerebellar hemispheres and vermis, and left fusiform, middle occipital, and superior temporal gyri. Significant variation in the amplitude and polarity of distractor-evoked activity was observed across stimulus repetitions. No overlap was observed between target- and distractor-evoked activity. These event-related fMRI results shed light on the anatomy of responses to target and distractor stimuli that have proven useful in many ERP studies of healthy and clinically impaired populations.

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