Stimulus information guides the emergence of behavior-related signals in primary somatosensory cortex during learning
Mariangela Panniello,
Colleen J. Gillon,
Roberto Maffulli,
Marco Celotto,
Blake A. Richards,
Stefano Panzeri,
Michael M. Kohl
Affiliations
Mariangela Panniello
Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PT, UK; School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK; Optical Approaches to Brain Function Laboratory, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, 16163 Genova, Italy
Colleen J. Gillon
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON M1C 1A4, Canada; Department of Cell & Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G5, Canada; Mila, Montréal, QC H2S 3H1, Canada
Roberto Maffulli
Neural Computation Laboratory, Center for Human Technologies, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, 16163 Genova, Italy
Marco Celotto
Neural Computation Laboratory, Center for Human Technologies, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, 16163 Genova, Italy; Institute of Neural Information Processing, Center for Molecular Neurobiology (ZMNH), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), 20251 Hamburg, Germany; Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy
Blake A. Richards
Mila, Montréal, QC H2S 3H1, Canada; School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montréal, QC H3A 2A7, Canada; Department of Neurology & Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montréal, QC H3A 1A1, Canada; Learning in Machines and Brains Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, ON M5G 1M1, Canada; Montreal Neurological Institute, Montréal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada
Stefano Panzeri
Neural Computation Laboratory, Center for Human Technologies, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, 16163 Genova, Italy; Institute of Neural Information Processing, Center for Molecular Neurobiology (ZMNH), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), 20251 Hamburg, Germany
Michael M. Kohl
Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PT, UK; School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK; Corresponding author
Summary: Neurons in the primary cortex carry sensory- and behavior-related information, but it remains an open question how this information emerges and intersects together during learning. Current evidence points to two possible learning-related changes: sensory information increases in the primary cortex or sensory information remains stable, but its readout efficiency in association cortices increases. We investigated this question by imaging neuronal activity in mouse primary somatosensory cortex before, during, and after learning of an object localization task. We quantified sensory- and behavior-related information and estimated how much sensory information was used to instruct perceptual choices as learning progressed. We find that sensory information increases from the start of training, while choice information is mostly present in the later stages of learning. Additionally, the readout of sensory information becomes more efficient with learning as early as in the primary sensory cortex. Together, our results highlight the importance of primary cortical neurons in perceptual learning.
