Motor cortex can modulate somatosensory processing via cortico-thalamo-cortical pathway

Lohse, Michael; Cooper, Margaret H.; Sader, E; Langfelder, A; Kahn, Martin; Baxter, Luke; Bartram, Julian; Phillips, James A.; Upton, Amy L.; Mann, Edward O.

doi:10.1101/366567

“…These include the lateral intraparietal area 53 and the temporo-occipital area 54 , regions that are engaged in visual attention tasks. Indeed, there is growing evidence that the secondary nuclei may function as hubs for cortico-cortical communication 23,55,56 . Elevated activity in POm and LP could reflect increased cortico-cortical communication between high-order regions, primary sensory regions, and motor regions based on attentional needs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional modulation of secondary somatosensory and visual thalamus of mice

Petty,

Bruno

2024

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Each sensory modality has its own primary and secondary thalamic nuclei. While the primary thalamic nuclei are well understood to relay sensory information from the periphery to the cortex, the role of secondary sensory nuclei is elusive. One hypothesis has been that secondary nuclei may support feature-based attention. If this is true, one would also expect the activity in different nuclei to reflect the degree to which modalities are or are not behaviorally relevant in a task. We trained head-fixed mice to attend to one sensory modality while ignoring a second modality, namely to attend to touch and ignore vision, or vice versa. Arrays were used to record simultaneously from secondary somatosensory thalamus (POm) and secondary visual thalamus (LP). In mice trained to respond to tactile stimuli and ignore visual stimuli, POm was robustly activated by touch and largely unresponsive to visual stimuli. A different pattern was observed when mice were trained to respond to visual stimuli and ignore touch, with POm now more robustly activated during visual trials. This POm activity was not explained by differences in movements (i.e., whisking, licking, pupil dilation) resulting from the two tasks. Post hoc histological reconstruction of array tracks through POm revealed that subregions varied in their degree of plasticity. LP exhibited similar phenomena. We conclude that behavioral training reshapes activity in secondary thalamic nuclei. Secondary nuclei may respond to behaviorally relevant, reward-predicting stimuli regardless of stimulus modality.

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Auditory contrast gain control predicts perceptual performance and is not dependent on cortical activity

Lohse

¹

,

Bajo

²

,

King

³

et al. 2019

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Neural adaptation enables sensory information to be represented optimally in the brain despite large fluctuations over time in the statistics of the environment. Auditory contrast gain control represents an important example, which is thought to arise primarily from cortical processing. We find, however, that neurons in both the auditory thalamus and midbrain of mice show robust contrast gain control, and that this is implemented independently of cortical activity. Although neurons at each level exhibit contrast gain control to similar degrees, adaptation time constants become longer at later stages of the processing hierarchy, resulting in progressively more stable representations. We also show that auditory discrimination thresholds in human listeners compensate for changes in contrast, and that the strength of this perceptual adaptation can be predicted from physiological measurements. Contrast adaptation is therefore a robust property of both the subcortical and cortical auditory system and accounts for the short-term adaptability of perceptual judgments.

show abstract

Attentional modulation of secondary somatosensory and visual thalamus of mice

Petty,

Bruno

2024

Preprint

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Each sensory modality has its own primary and secondary thalamic nuclei. While the primary thalamic nuclei are well understood to relay sensory information from the periphery to the cortex, the role of secondary sensory nuclei is elusive. One hypothesis has been that secondary nuclei may support feature-based attention. If this is true, one would also expect the activity in different nuclei to reflect the degree to which modalities are or are not behaviorally relevant in a task. We trained head-fixed mice to attend to one sensory modality while ignoring a second modality, namely to attend to touch and ignore vision, or vice versa. Arrays were used to record simultaneously from secondary somatosensory thalamus (POm) and secondary visual thalamus (LP). In mice trained to respond to tactile stimuli and ignore visual stimuli, POm was robustly activated by touch and largely unresponsive to visual stimuli. A different pattern was observed when mice were trained to respond to visual stimuli and ignore touch, with POm now more robustly activated during visual trials. This POm activity was not explained by differences in movements (i.e., whisking, licking, pupil dilation) resulting from the two tasks. Post hoc histological reconstruction of array tracks through POm revealed that subregions varied in their degree of plasticity. LP exhibited similar phenomena. We conclude that behavioral training reshapes activity in secondary thalamic nuclei. Secondary nuclei may respond to behaviorally relevant, reward-predicting stimuli regardless of stimulus modality.

show abstract

Motor cortex can modulate somatosensory processing via cortico-thalamo-cortical pathway

Cited by 4 publications

References 45 publications

Attentional modulation of secondary somatosensory and visual thalamus of mice

Attentional modulation of secondary somatosensory and visual thalamus of mice

Auditory contrast gain control predicts perceptual performance and is not dependent on cortical activity

Attentional modulation of secondary somatosensory and visual thalamus of mice

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