Investigating non-sensory neuronal responses across cell types in the somatosensory cortex.

Breakthroughs in Understanding Natural Behaviour and its Neural Underpinnings (University of Manchester, UK) (2024) Proc Physiol Soc 61, C11

Poster Communications: Investigating non-sensory neuronal responses across cell types in the somatosensory cortex.

Chrysovalantis Fekos1, Miguel Maravall1,

1University of Sussex Falmer, Brighton United Kingdom,

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The somatosensory cortex has been predominantly considered as a brain region encoding sensory information, such as that related to touch, in a somatotopically organised manner. Recent studies have contradicted this established view, showing that excitatory neurons in the somatosensory cortex can respond to information related to non-sensory aspects of behaviour, such as motor actions or rewards. However, it is unknown whether different cell types within the circuit respond to distinct non-sensory aspects of behaviour when an animal attempts to discriminate between different tactile stimuli. Here, we performed two-photon calcium imaging of different types of inhibitory neurons from head-fixed mice trained on a whisker-based tactile sequence discrimination task, to identify the responses of those neurons during behaviour. We imaged parvalbumin (PV)-, vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP)-, and somatostatin (SST)- expressing interneurons in the barrel cortex. In preliminary data we found interneurons that increased their firing rate to non-sensory aspects of behaviour relevant to the task goal, such as licks. Motor related behaviour we have seen in all three cell classes included either neurons increasing their firing rate before the onset of both correct and erroneous licks, or neurons responding only before the onset of correct licks. Sensory responses were unequally represented in all three classes, with SST interneurons showing the highest fraction of sensory responses. We also found neurons with more complex activity patterns. We are currently incorporating locomotion and arousal (via pupillometry) into our analysis of these more complex aspects of neuronal behaviour. In summary, our data so far has shown that not only excitatory but also inhibitory neurons in the barrel cortex can show a response preference to multiple task variables including motor behaviour during a tactile sequence discrimination task.



Where applicable, experiments conform with Society ethical requirements.

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