Multiple timescales of sensory-evidence accumulation across the dorsal cortex
Cortical areas seem to form a hierarchy of intrinsic timescales, but the relevance of this organization for cognitive behavior remains unknown. In particular, decisions requiring the gradual accrual of sensory evidence over time recruit widespread areas across this hierarchy. Here, we tested the hyp...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
2022-06-01
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| Series: | eLife |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://elifesciences.org/articles/70263 |
| _version_ | 1811252159081086976 |
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| author | Lucas Pinto David W Tank Carlos D Brody |
| author_facet | Lucas Pinto David W Tank Carlos D Brody |
| author_sort | Lucas Pinto |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Cortical areas seem to form a hierarchy of intrinsic timescales, but the relevance of this organization for cognitive behavior remains unknown. In particular, decisions requiring the gradual accrual of sensory evidence over time recruit widespread areas across this hierarchy. Here, we tested the hypothesis that this recruitment is related to the intrinsic integration timescales of these widespread areas. We trained mice to accumulate evidence over seconds while navigating in virtual reality and optogenetically silenced the activity of many cortical areas during different brief trial epochs. We found that the inactivation of all tested areas affected the evidence-accumulation computation. Specifically, we observed distinct changes in the weighting of sensory evidence occurring during and before silencing, such that frontal inactivations led to stronger deficits on long timescales than posterior cortical ones. Inactivation of a subset of frontal areas also led to moderate effects on behavioral processes beyond evidence accumulation. Moreover, large-scale cortical Ca2+ activity during task performance displayed different temporal integration windows. Our findings suggest that the intrinsic timescale hierarchy of distributed cortical areas is an important component of evidence-accumulation mechanisms. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T16:31:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0a7c2f5766d142c7ac008d8afb9e09a8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2050-084X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T16:31:37Z |
| publishDate | 2022-06-01 |
| publisher | eLife Sciences Publications Ltd |
| record_format | Article |
| series | eLife |
| spelling | doaj.art-0a7c2f5766d142c7ac008d8afb9e09a82022-12-22T03:25:08ZengeLife Sciences Publications LtdeLife2050-084X2022-06-011110.7554/eLife.70263Multiple timescales of sensory-evidence accumulation across the dorsal cortexLucas Pinto0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0471-9317David W Tank1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9423-4267Carlos D Brody2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4201-561XDepartment of Neuroscience, Northwestern University, Chicago, United States; Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United StatesPrinceton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United StatesPrinceton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United StatesCortical areas seem to form a hierarchy of intrinsic timescales, but the relevance of this organization for cognitive behavior remains unknown. In particular, decisions requiring the gradual accrual of sensory evidence over time recruit widespread areas across this hierarchy. Here, we tested the hypothesis that this recruitment is related to the intrinsic integration timescales of these widespread areas. We trained mice to accumulate evidence over seconds while navigating in virtual reality and optogenetically silenced the activity of many cortical areas during different brief trial epochs. We found that the inactivation of all tested areas affected the evidence-accumulation computation. Specifically, we observed distinct changes in the weighting of sensory evidence occurring during and before silencing, such that frontal inactivations led to stronger deficits on long timescales than posterior cortical ones. Inactivation of a subset of frontal areas also led to moderate effects on behavioral processes beyond evidence accumulation. Moreover, large-scale cortical Ca2+ activity during task performance displayed different temporal integration windows. Our findings suggest that the intrinsic timescale hierarchy of distributed cortical areas is an important component of evidence-accumulation mechanisms.https://elifesciences.org/articles/70263decision-makingevidence accumulationintrinsic timescalescortexvirtual realityoptogenetics |
| spellingShingle | Lucas Pinto David W Tank Carlos D Brody Multiple timescales of sensory-evidence accumulation across the dorsal cortex eLife decision-making evidence accumulation intrinsic timescales cortex virtual reality optogenetics |
| title | Multiple timescales of sensory-evidence accumulation across the dorsal cortex |
| title_full | Multiple timescales of sensory-evidence accumulation across the dorsal cortex |
| title_fullStr | Multiple timescales of sensory-evidence accumulation across the dorsal cortex |
| title_full_unstemmed | Multiple timescales of sensory-evidence accumulation across the dorsal cortex |
| title_short | Multiple timescales of sensory-evidence accumulation across the dorsal cortex |
| title_sort | multiple timescales of sensory evidence accumulation across the dorsal cortex |
| topic | decision-making evidence accumulation intrinsic timescales cortex virtual reality optogenetics |
| url | https://elifesciences.org/articles/70263 |
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