Readout and control of spatiotemporal neuronal codes for behavior

项目摘要 为了生存，生物体必须准确地表示外部世界的刺激，并使用这种表示 以产生有益的行为行为。从历史上看，这两个过程-从刺激到 神经反应，以及从神经活动到行为的映射--在很大程度上是分开处理的。的 两者中，前者受到的关注最多。通常被称为“神经编码问题”，它的目标是 以确定神经活动的哪些特征携带有关外部刺激的信息。这种方法导致了 关于神经种群的时空特征的许多经验和理论建议 活动，或“神经编码”，代表感觉信息。然而，关于以下问题仍未达成共识 神经系统大多数区域中大多数感官刺激的神经编码。缺乏共识 产生的部分原因是，虽然已经确定神经群体反应的某些特征携带 关于特定刺激的信息，尚不清楚大脑是否使用(“读取”)这些信息 形成感官知觉的特征。我们已经开发了一个理论框架，基于交叉点 编码和读出，来解决这个问题。试验性地告知这个框架需要 在与其相同的时空尺度上操纵神经元活动的模式 感官知觉过程中的自然放电模式。这项工作必须在动物身上进行，因为它 对于知道哪些神经编码指导行为决策是至关重要的。在该项目的第一阶段(资助 通过大脑倡议)，我们开发了实现这一目标所需的技术。在现在 我们将扩展我们的模式神经元刺激技术，并将其应用于回答长期存在的问题 关于视觉、嗅觉和听觉系统的神经编码和读出的问题。我们将开创先河 确定网络中哪些神经元正在编码行为相关信息的能力， 并确定这些神经元活动的时间模式被用来 引导行为。最后，我们将研究这些神经编码原理在行为状态和 在学习过程中，确定内部环境和过去的经验如何塑造编码和读出。这个 拟议工作的贡献将是三方面的。首先，我们将为神经科学界提供 测试神经群体如何在整个大脑中编码和解码信息的理论所需的工具。 第二，我们将揭示时空神经编码和视觉读出的基本原理， 嗅觉和行为动物的听觉系统。第三，我们统一的理论框架 破解神经密码将使更广泛的神经科学界能够解决正在进行的辩论 关于先前通过仅考虑编码/读出的一半而陷入僵局的神经编码 有问题。

Project Summary To survive, organisms must both accurately represent stimuli in the outside world, and use that representation to generate beneficial behavioral actions. Historically, these two processes – the mapping from stimuli to neural responses, and the mapping from neural activity to behavior – have largely been treated separately. Of the two, the former has received the most attention. Often referred to as the “neural coding problem,” its goal is to determine which features of neural activity carry information about external stimuli. This approach has led to many empirical and theoretical proposals about the spatial and temporal features of neural population activity, or “neural codes,” that represent sensory information. However, there is still no consensus about the neural code for most sensory stimuli in most areas of the nervous system. The lack of consensus arises in part because, while it is established that certain features of neural population responses carry information about specific stimuli, it is unclear whether the brain uses (“reads”) the information in these features to form sensory perceptions. We have developed a theoretical framework, based on the intersection of coding and readout, to approach this problem. Experimentally informing this framework requires manipulating patterns of neuronal activity based on, and at the same spatiotemporal scale as, their natural firing patterns during sensory perception. This work must be done in behaving animals because it is essential to know which neural codes guide behavioral decisions. In the first phase of this project (funded by the BRAIN Initiative), we developed the technology necessary for realizing this goal. In the present proposal, we will extend our patterned neuronal stimulation technology and apply it to answer long-standing questions about neural coding and readout in the visual, olfactory, and auditory systems. We will pioneer the capacity to determine which neurons within a network are encoding behaviorally relevant information, and also to determine the extent to which temporal patterns of those neurons’ activity are being used to guide behavior. Finally, we will study these neural coding principles across changes in behavioral state and during learning to determine how internal context and past experience shape coding and readout. The contributions of the proposed work will be three-fold. First, we will provide the neuroscience community with the tools needed to test theories of how neural populations encode and decode information throughout the brain. Second, we will reveal fundamental principles of spatiotemporal neural coding and readout in the visual, olfactory, and auditory systems of behaving animals. And third, our unifying theoretical framework for cracking neural codes will allow the broader neuroscience community to resolve ongoing debates regarding neural coding that have been previously stalemated by considering only half of the coding/readout problem.