Adaptive stretching of representations across brain regions and deep learning model layers

Xin-Ya Zhang (), Sebastian Bobadilla-Suarez, Xiaoliang Luo, Marilena Lemonari, Scott L. Brincat, Markus Siegel, Earl K. Miller and Bradley C. Love ()
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Xin-Ya Zhang: Westlake University, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Department of Physics, School of Science
Sebastian Bobadilla-Suarez: University College London, Department of Experimental Psychology
Xiaoliang Luo: University College London, Department of Experimental Psychology
Marilena Lemonari: University of Cyprus, Computer Science
Scott L. Brincat: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
Markus Siegel: University of Tübingen, Department of Neural Dynamics and Magnetoencephalography, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research
Earl K. Miller: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
Bradley C. Love: Los Alamos National Laboratory

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Prefrontal cortex (PFC) is known to modulate the visual system to favor goal-relevant information by accentuating task-relevant stimulus dimensions. Does the brain broadly re-configures itself to optimize performance by stretching visual representations along task-relevant dimensions? We considered a task that required monkeys to selectively attend on a trial-by-trial basis to one of two dimensions (color or motion direction) to make a decision. Although effects were most prominent in frontal areas, representations stretched along task-relevant dimensions in all sites considered: V4, MT, lateral PFC, frontal eye fields (FEF), lateral intraparietal cortex (LIP), and inferotemporal cortex (IT). Spike timing was crucial to this code. A deep learning model was trained on the same visual input and rewards as the monkeys. Despite lacking an explicit selective attention or other control mechanism, by minimizing error during learning, the model’s representations stretched along task-relevant dimensions, indicating that stretching is an adaptive strategy.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-65231-y

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