A stable, distributed code for cue value in mouse cortex during reward learning

Abstract

The ability to associate reward-predicting stimuli with adaptive behavior is frequently attributed to the prefrontal cortex, but the stimulus-specificity, spatial distribution, and stability of prefrontal cue-reward associations are unresolved. We trained head-fixed mice on an olfactory Pavlovian conditioning task and measured the coding properties of individual neurons across space (prefrontal, olfactory, and motor cortices) and time (multiple days). Neurons encoding cues or licks were most common in the olfactory and motor cortex, respectively. By quantifying the responses of cue-encoding neurons to six cues with varying probabilities of reward, we unexpectedly found value coding in all regions we sampled, with some enrichment in the prefrontal cortex. We further found that prefrontal cue and lick codes were preserved across days. Our results demonstrate that individual prefrontal neurons stably encode components of cue-reward learning within a larger spatial gradient of coding properties.

Contexts facilitate dynamic value encoding in the mesolimbic dopamine system

“…We averaged together the activity on OS alone, CS alone, and OSCS trials to create each neuron's PSTH for each trial type and then found the mean and standard error of these traces across groups of neurons. To detect neurons with responses to variables of interest, we adapted a kernel regression approach used previously (Ottenheimer et al, 2023). For each neuron, we predicted the activity on each trial (-11 to +12 s relative to CS onset) in 100ms bins using a series of kernels with windows that spanned multiple seconds consisting of 100ms bins.…”

Neural signatures of stress susceptibility and resilience in the amygdala-hippocampal network

“…The reciprocally connected amygdala (AMY) and ventral hippocampus (vHPC) are crucial nodes in an extended network responsible for generating emotional and motivated behavior . In addition to its role in threat detection and anxiety-related behavior, the basolateral amygdala (BLA) generates outcome-specific reward representations to guide decision-making (38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45). Ventral CA1 (vCA1) has also been shown to encode reward-predictive stimuli and drive rewardrelated approach behaviors (46)(47)(48)(49)(50).…”