[en] How does the brain simultaneously process signals that bring complementary information, like raw sensory signals and their transformed counterparts, without any disruptive interference? Contemporary research underscores the brain's adeptness in using decorrelated responses to reduce such interference. Both neurophysiological findings and artificial neural networks support the notion of orthogonal representation for signal differentiation and parallel processing. Yet, where, and how raw sensory signals are transformed into more abstract representations remains unclear. Using a temporal pattern discrimination task in trained monkeys, we revealed that the second somatosensory cortex (S2) efficiently segregates faithful and transformed neural responses into orthogonal subspaces. Importantly, S2 population encoding for transformed signals, but not for faithful ones, disappeared during a nondemanding version of this task, which suggests that signal transformation and their decoding from downstream areas are only active on-demand. A mechanistic computation model points to gain modulation as a possible biological mechanism for the observed context-dependent computation. Furthermore, individual neural activities that underlie the orthogonal population representations exhibited a continuum of responses, with no well-determined clusters. These findings advocate that the brain, while employing a continuum of heterogeneous neural responses, splits population signals into orthogonal subspaces in a context-dependent fashion to enhance robustness, performance, and improve coding efficiency.
Disciplines :
Neurosciences & behavior
Author, co-author :
Bayones, Lucas; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City 04510, Mexico
Zainos, Antonio ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City 04510, Mexico
Alvarez, Manuel ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City 04510, Mexico
Romo, Ranulfo; El Colegio Nacional, Mexico City 06020, Mexico
Franci, Alessio ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'électricité, électronique et informatique (Institut Montefiore) > Brain-Inspired Computing ; Departmento de Matemática, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City 04510, Mexico ; Wallon ExceLlence (WEL) Research Institute, Wavre 1300, Belgique
Rossi-Pool, Román ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Departamento de Neurociencia Cognitiva, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City 04510, Mexico ; Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City 04510, Mexico
Language :
English
Title :
Orthogonality of sensory and contextual categorical dynamics embedded in a continuum of responses from the second somatosensory cortex.
Publication date :
16 July 2024
Journal title :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
UNAM - Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México CONACYT - Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología IBRO - International Brain Research Organization
Funding text :
We thank Hector Diaz for his technical assistance. This work was supported by grants PAPIIT-IN205022 from the Direcci\u00F3n de Asuntos del Personal Acad\u00E9mico de la Universidad Nacional Aut\u00F3noma de M\u00E9xico (to R.R.-P.) and CONAHCYT-319347 (to R.R.-P.) from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnolog\u00EDa; International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) Early Career Award 2022 (to R.R.-P.) from International Brain Research Association. L.B. is a postdoctoral student (Postdoctoral fellowship CONACYT-838783).ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Hector Diaz for his technical assistance. This work was supported by grants PAPIIT-IN205022 from the Direcci\u00F3n de Asuntos del Personal Acad\u00E9mico de la Universidad Nacional Aut\u00F3noma de M\u00E9xico (to R.R.-P.) and CONAHCYT-319347 (to R.R.-P.) from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnolog\u00EDa; International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) Early Career Award 2022 (to R.R.-P.) from International Brain Research Association. L.B. is a postdoctoral student (Postdoctoral fellowship CONACYT-838783).
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