Institute for Physiology I, Medical Faculty, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
Faculty of Biology, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
Nat Commun. 2024 Mar 8;15(1):2115. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-46350-4.
Behavior can be remarkably consistent, even over extended time periods, yet whether this is reflected in stable or 'drifting' neuronal responses to task features remains controversial. Here, we find a persistently active ensemble of neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of mice that reliably maintains trajectory-specific tuning over several weeks while performing an olfaction-guided spatial memory task. This task-specific reference frame is stabilized during learning, upon which repeatedly active neurons show little representational drift and maintain their trajectory-specific tuning across long pauses in task exposure and across repeated changes in cue-target location pairings. These data thus suggest a 'core ensemble' of prefrontal neurons forming a reference frame of task-relevant space for the performance of consistent behavior over extended periods of time.
行为可以非常一致，即使在很长的时间内也是如此，但这种一致性是否反映在对任务特征的稳定或“漂移”的神经元反应中，仍然存在争议。在这里，我们发现小鼠内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）中存在一组持续活跃的神经元，它们在执行嗅觉引导的空间记忆任务时，能够可靠地保持数周的轨迹特异性调谐。在学习过程中，这个特定于任务的参考框架会得到稳定，在此基础上，反复活跃的神经元几乎没有表现出代表性的漂移，并在长时间暂停任务暴露和重复改变线索-目标位置配对时，保持其轨迹特异性调谐。因此，这些数据表明，前额叶神经元的“核心集合”形成了一个与任务相关的空间参考框架，用于在很长一段时间内保持一致的行为。
