Heimburg Filippo, Saluti Nadin Mari, Timm Josephine, Adlakha Avi, Bortolozzo-Gleich Maria Helena, Martín-Cortecero Jesús, Castelanelli Melina, Klumpp Matthias, Embray Lee, Both Martin, Kuner Thomas, Groh Alexander
Institute for Physiology and Pathophysiology, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany.
Institute for Experimental Epileptology and Cognition Research, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
Nat Commun. 2025 Jul 11;16(1):6421. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-61792-0.
Sensory discrimination tasks are valuable tools to study neuronal mechanisms of perception and learning, yet most rodent paradigms rely on head fixation. Here, we present a whisker-dependent go/no-go discrimination task for freely moving mice, compatible with high-resolution electrophysiology and calcium imaging. Adult male mice rapidly learned to discriminate aperture widths while foraging on a linear platform, enabling investigations of tactile thresholds, rule reversals, and behavioral flexibility. Neural recordings revealed distributed tactile coding across the thalamocortical system, with units tuned to both sensory and motor features, including whisking, head angle, and spatial position. Aperture selectivity emerged in the barrel cortex during learning, and cortical lesions impaired performance, highlighting cortical involvement in learning and task execution. The setup is modular, automated, and supports simultaneous recordings and imaging aligned to naturalistic behavior. This platform provides a powerful tool to dissect sensory processing and learning in ethologically relevant conditions.
感觉辨别任务是研究感知和学习的神经元机制的重要工具，但大多数啮齿动物实验范式都依赖于头部固定。在此，我们为自由活动的小鼠呈现了一种基于触须的“去/不去”辨别任务，该任务与高分辨率电生理学和钙成像兼容。成年雄性小鼠在沿着线性平台觅食时能快速学会辨别孔径宽度，从而能够研究触觉阈值、规则反转和行为灵活性。神经记录揭示了整个丘脑皮质系统中分布式的触觉编码，其中的神经元对包括触须运动、头部角度和空间位置等感觉和运动特征都有调谐。在学习过程中，桶状皮质出现了孔径选择性，并且皮质损伤会损害任务表现，这突出了皮质在学习和任务执行中的作用。该实验装置是模块化、自动化的，并且支持与自然行为对齐的同步记录和成像。这个平台为在行为学相关条件下剖析感觉处理和学习提供了一个强大的工具。
