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Data from: Response outcome gates the effect of spontaneous cortical state fluctuations on perceptual decisions

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May 24, 2023 version files 1.76 MB

Abstract

Sensory responses of cortical neurons are more discriminable when evoked on a baseline of desynchronized spontaneous activity, but cortical desynchronization has not generally been associated with more accurate perceptual decisions. Here we show that mice perform more accurate auditory judgements when activity in the auditory cortex is elevated and desynchronized before stimulus onset, but only if the previous trial was an error, and that this relationship is occluded if previous outcome is ignored. We confirmed that the outcome-dependent effect of brain state on performance is neither due to idiosyncratic associations between the slow components of either signal, nor to the existence of specific cortical states evident only after errors. Instead, errors appear to gate the effect of cortical state fluctuations on discrimination accuracy. Neither facial movements nor pupil size during the baseline were associated with accuracy, but they were predictive of measures of responsivity, such as the probability of not responding to the stimulus or of responding prematurely. These results suggest that the functional role of cortical state on behavior is dynamic and constantly regulated by performance monitoring systems.

Data/analyses: Mice perform an auditory frequency discrimination task and in the main analyses we predict the outcome of the current or previous trial as a function of different behavioral variables (described in the README file). Different outcomes are predicted depending on the specific analyses. While animals perform the task, we record neuronal activity from the auditory cortex using silicon probes, as well as videos to extract facial movements and pupil size. Electrophysiological data was used to estimate the overall rate and synchrony of the neuronal population before stimulus presentation.