Decision and navigation in mouse parietal cortex

Posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has been implicated in navigation, in the control of movement, and in visually-guided decisions. To relate these views, we measured activity in PPC while mice performed a virtual navigation task driven by visual decisions. PPC neurons were selective for specific combi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2018-11, Vol.7
Main Authors: Krumin, Michael, Lee, Julie J, Harris, Kenneth D, Carandini, Matteo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal models
Animals
Brain Mapping
Choice Behavior - physiology
Clinical decision making
cortex
Cortex (parietal)
decision
Decision making
Decision Making - physiology
Firing pattern
Mice
Movement - physiology
navigation
Navigation behavior
Neurons
Neurons - physiology
Neuroscience
Parietal Lobe - physiology
Probability distribution
Quantitative psychology
Random variables
Sensorimotor integration
University colleges
Vision, Ocular - physiology
Visual cortex
visual processing
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Summary:Posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has been implicated in navigation, in the control of movement, and in visually-guided decisions. To relate these views, we measured activity in PPC while mice performed a virtual navigation task driven by visual decisions. PPC neurons were selective for specific combinations of the animal's spatial position and heading angle. This selectivity closely predicted both the activity of individual PPC neurons, and the arrangement of their collective firing patterns in choice-selective sequences. These sequences reflected PPC encoding of the animal's navigation trajectory. Using decision as a predictor instead of heading yielded worse fits, and using it in addition to heading only slightly improved the fits. Alternative models based on visual or motor variables were inferior. We conclude that when mice use vision to choose their trajectories, a large fraction of parietal cortex activity can be predicted from simple attributes such as spatial position and heading.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/elife.42583