Activation of serotonin neurons promotes active persistence in a probabilistic foraging task

Lottem, Eran; Banerjee, Dhruba; Vertechi, Pietro; Sarra, Dario; Lohuis, Matthijs N Oude; Mainen, Zachary F.

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03438-y

Cited by 122 publications

(129 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…Although recent work has examined foraging tasks within a systems neuroscience framework [90][91][92][93], there remain many open questions related to how the brain processes key aspects of foraging decisions. For example, experiments with the "Self-control preparation," where an animal chooses between two choices, have significant behavioral differences with those that have a sequential foraging "patch preparation", even though from an economic standpoint, the setups are equivalent [94].…”

Section: Experimental Applications: Behavior and Neurosciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Normative theory of patch foraging decisions

Kilpatrick

Davidson

Hady

2020

Preprint

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Foraging is a fundamental behavior as animals' search for food is crucial for their survival. Patch leaving is a canonical foraging behavior, but classic theoretical conceptions of patch leaving decisions lack some key naturalistic details. Optimal foraging theory provides general rules for when an animal should leave a patch, but does not provide mechanistic insights about how those rules change with the structure of the environment. Such a mechanistic framework would aid in designing quantitative experiments to unravel behavioral and neural underpinnings of foraging. To address these shortcomings, we develop a normative theory of patch foraging decisions. Using a Bayesian approach, we treat patch leaving behavior as a statistical inference problem. We derive the animals' optimal decision strategies in both non-depleting and depleting environments. A majority of these cases can be analyzed explicitly using methods from stochastic processes. Our behavioral predictions are expressed in terms of the optimal patch residence time and the decision rule by which an animal departs a patch. We also extend our theory to a hierarchical model in which the forager learns the environmental food resource distribution. The quantitative framework we develop will therefore help experimenters move from analyzing trial based behavior to continuous behavior without the loss of quantitative rigor. Our theoretical framework both extends optimal foraging theory and motivates a variety of behavioral and neuroscientific experiments investigating patch foraging behavior. CONTENTS

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Section: Experimental Applications: Behavior and Neurosciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Normative theory of patch foraging decisions

Kilpatrick

Davidson

Hady

2020

Preprint

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“…However, there is limited work with these probes in unrestrained mice (Evans et al, 2018), likely because of the difficulty designing small, lightweight recording devices. Still, there is plentiful interest in behaviors and computations that involve movements of the animal's head in space (Vélez-Fort et al, 2018), foraging (Lottem et al, 2018), pup retrieval (Marlin et al, 2015), or naturalistic fear responses (Evans et al, 2018). Further, although these probes have been very successful in freely moving rats (Jaeyoon et al, 2017;Krupic et al, 2018), there is not an established method to recover them after the experiment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chronically-implanted Neuropixels probes enable high yield recordings in freely moving mice

Juavinett¹,

Bekheet²,

Churchland³

2019

Protocol Exchange

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The advent of high-yield electrophysiology using Neuropixels probes is now enabling researchers to simultaneously record hundreds of neurons with remarkably high signal to noise. However, these probes have not been well-suited to use in freely moving mice. It is critical to study neural activity in unrestricted animals for many reasons, such as leveraging ethological approaches to study neural circuits. We designed and implemented a novel device that allows Neuropixels probes to be customized for chronically implanted experiments in freely moving mice. We demonstrate the ease and utility of this approach in recording hundreds of neurons during an ethological behavior across weeks of experiments. We provide the technical drawings and procedures for other researchers to do the same. Importantly, our approach enables researchers to explant and reuse these valuable probes, a transformative step which has not been established for recordings with any type of chronically-implanted probe.

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“…Light delivery started after the first lick was detected, and lasted up to 5 s unless the animal started running, which interrupted the stimulation. Previous experiments validated that 5-HT neurons keep responding throughout the entire length of photostimulation [39] and that the photostimulation affected mice behavior [39][40][41] .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 78%

Phasic activation of dorsal raphe serotonergic neurons increases pupil-linked arousal

Cazettes

Reato

Morais

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Variations in pupil size under constant luminance are closely coupled to changes in arousal state [1][2][3][4][5]. It is assumed that such fluctuations are primarily controlled by the noradrenergic system [6][7][8][9]. Phasic activity of noradrenergic axons precedes pupil dilations associated with rapid changes in arousal [7,9], and is believed to be driven by unexpected uncertainty [1,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. However, the role of other modulatory pathways in the control of pupil-linked arousal has not been as thoroughly investigated, but evidence suggests that noradrenaline may not be alone [7,17,18]. Administration of serotonergic drugs seems to affect pupil size [19][20][21][22][23], but these effects have not been investigated in detail. Here, we show that transient serotonin (5-HT) activation, like noradrenaline, causes pupil-size changes. We used phasic optogenetic activation of 5-HT neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) in head-fixed mice locomoting in a foraging task. 5-HT-driven modulations of pupil size were maintained throughout the photostimulation period and sustained for several seconds after the end of the stimulation. The activation of 5-HT neurons increased pupil size additively with locomotor speed, suggesting that 5-HT transients affect pupil-linked arousal independently from locomotor states. We found that the effect of 5-HT on pupil size depended on the level of environmental uncertainty, consistent with the idea that 5-HT may report a salience or surprise signal [24] . Together, these results challenge the classic view of the neuromodulatory control of pupil-linked arousal, revealing a tight relationship between the activation of 5-HT neurons and changes in pupil size.

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Activation of serotonin neurons promotes active persistence in a probabilistic foraging task

Cited by 122 publications

References 62 publications

Normative theory of patch foraging decisions

Normative theory of patch foraging decisions

Chronically-implanted Neuropixels probes enable high yield recordings in freely moving mice

Phasic activation of dorsal raphe serotonergic neurons increases pupil-linked arousal

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