Visual behavior requires coordinated activity across hierarchically organized brain circuits. Understanding this complexity demands datasets that are both large-scale (sampling many areas) and dense (recording many neurons in each area). Here, we present a database of spiking activity across the mouse visual system-including the cortex, thalamus, and midbrain-while mice perform an image change detection task. Using Neuropixels probes, we record from >75,000 high-quality units in 54 mice, mapping area-, cortical-layer-, and cell-type-specific coding of sensory and motor information. Modulation by task engagement increased across the thalamocortical hierarchy but was strongest in the midbrain. Novel images recruited an expanded cortical population and modulated late cortical (but not thalamic) responses. Population decoding and optogenetics identified a critical time window for change detection and were consistent with mice using an adaptation-based rather than image-comparison strategy. This comprehensive resource provides a valuable substrate for understanding sensorimotor computations in neural networks.
Corbett Bennett, Samuel D. Gale, Greggory Heller et al.· Cell· 0 citations
Electrical stimulation is widely used to modulate neuronal activity, yet its effects on neuronal circuits in vivo remain poorly understood. This, in turn, has hindered the principled design of stimulation protocols and raised questions about reproducibility that constrain the field’s translational impact. Here we combine cortical sinusoidal electrical stimulation (sES) with Neuropixels recordings to characterize stimulation-driven responses in more than 2,700 well-isolated neurons across 53 brain areas in 14 behaving, head-fixed mice. We uncover two distinct, concurrent modes of neural modulation. First is a sustained, brain-wide spike-phase entrainment effect that depends on stimulation frequency: entrainment to slow stimulation is supported by non-synaptic electric field propagation while anatomical connectivity dominates entrainment to higher stimulation frequencies. Second, we find a transient, spatially localized spike-rate modulation mainly mediated through anatomical connectivity that only emerges at high stimulation frequencies by selectively recruiting inhibitory neurons. We show that the two distinct modes are differentially shaped by behavior. By identifying how stimulation frequency governs the mechanism of neural engagement and how behavioral state selectively gates brain-wide entrainment but not local inhibitory recruitment, our results provide a mechanistic foundation for designing targeted, reproducible neuromodulation strategies.
I. Rembado, Soo Yeun Lee, L. Marks et al.· bioRxiv· 0 citations
