Cortical reactivations predict future sensory responses

Nghia D. Nguyen, Andrew Lutas, Oren Amsalem, Jesseba Fernando, Andy Young-Eon Ahn, Richard Hakim, Josselyn Vergara, Justin McMahon, Jordane Dimidschstein, Bernardo L. Sabatini and Mark L. Andermann ()
Additional contact information
Nghia D. Nguyen: Harvard University
Andrew Lutas: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Oren Amsalem: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Jesseba Fernando: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Andy Young-Eon Ahn: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Richard Hakim: Harvard University
Josselyn Vergara: Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT
Justin McMahon: Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT
Jordane Dimidschstein: Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT
Bernardo L. Sabatini: Harvard University
Mark L. Andermann: Harvard University

Nature, 2024, vol. 625, issue 7993, 110-118

Abstract: Abstract Many theories of offline memory consolidation posit that the pattern of neurons activated during a salient sensory experience will be faithfully reactivated, thereby stabilizing the pattern1,2. However, sensory-evoked patterns are not stable but, instead, drift across repeated experiences3–6. Here, to investigate the relationship between reactivations and the drift of sensory representations, we imaged the calcium activity of thousands of excitatory neurons in the mouse lateral visual cortex. During the minute after a visual stimulus, we observed transient, stimulus-specific reactivations, often coupled with hippocampal sharp-wave ripples. Stimulus-specific reactivations were abolished by local cortical silencing during the preceding stimulus. Reactivations early in a session systematically differed from the pattern evoked by the previous stimulus—they were more similar to future stimulus response patterns, thereby predicting both within-day and across-day representational drift. In particular, neurons that participated proportionally more or less in early stimulus reactivations than in stimulus response patterns gradually increased or decreased their future stimulus responses, respectively. Indeed, we could accurately predict future changes in stimulus responses and the separation of responses to distinct stimuli using only the rate and content of reactivations. Thus, reactivations may contribute to a gradual drift and separation in sensory cortical response patterns, thereby enhancing sensory discrimination7.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06810-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:625:y:2024:i:7993:d:10.1038_s41586-023-06810-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06810-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().