Bjerre Ann-Sofie, Palmer Lucy M
Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.
Front Mol Neurosci. 2020 Feb 28;13:30. doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2020.00030. eCollection 2020.
The cortex is crucial for many behaviors, ranging from sensory-based behaviors to working memory and social behaviors. To gain an in-depth understanding of the contribution to these behaviors, cellular and sub-cellular recordings from both individual and populations of cortical neurons are vital. However, techniques allowing such recordings, such as two-photon imaging and whole-cell electrophysiology, require absolute stability of the head, a requirement not often fulfilled in freely moving animals. Here, we review and compare behavioral paradigms that have been developed and adapted for the head-fixed preparation, which together offer the needed stability for live recordings of neural activity in behaving animals. We also review how the head-fixed preparation has been used to explore the function of primary sensory cortices, posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and anterior lateral motor (ALM) cortex in sensory-based behavioral tasks, while also discussing the considerations of performing such recordings. Overall, this review highlights the head-fixed preparation as allowing in-depth investigation into the neural activity underlying behaviors by providing highly controllable settings for precise stimuli presentation which can be combined with behavioral paradigms ranging from simple sensory detection tasks to complex, cross-modal, memory-guided decision-making tasks.
皮层对于许多行为至关重要，从基于感觉的行为到工作记忆和社交行为。为了深入了解其对这些行为的贡献，对单个和群体皮层神经元进行细胞和亚细胞记录至关重要。然而，允许进行此类记录的技术，如双光子成像和全细胞电生理学，需要头部绝对稳定，而这一要求在自由活动的动物中往往难以满足。在此，我们回顾并比较了为头部固定准备而开发和改编的行为范式，这些范式共同为行为动物的神经活动实时记录提供了所需的稳定性。我们还回顾了头部固定准备如何用于探索初级感觉皮层、后顶叶皮层（PPC）和前外侧运动（ALM）皮层在基于感觉的行为任务中的功能，同时也讨论了进行此类记录的注意事项。总体而言，本综述强调了头部固定准备通过提供高度可控的设置以进行精确刺激呈现，从而能够深入研究行为背后的神经活动，这些设置可与从简单的感觉检测任务到复杂的跨模态、记忆引导的决策任务等行为范式相结合。
