Multistable bimodal perceptual coding within the ventral premotor cortex.

Animals; Neurons/physiology; Macaca mulatta; Male; Models, Neurological; Motor Cortex/physiology; Detection tasks; Multi-modal; Multistable; Neural-networks; Neuronal activities; Perceptual coding; Population analysis; Premotor cortex; Sensory information; Single cells analysis; Motor Cortex; Neurons; Multidisciplinary

Abstract :

[en] How neurons in the ventral premotor cortex (VPC) integrate and process multimodal sensory information remains unclear. We recorded VPC neuronal activity in two monkeys performing a tactile or acoustic bimodal detection task (BDT). Single-cell analyses revealed purely tactile, purely acoustic, bimodal, and decision-mnemonic responses. Population analyses of the VPC network and a recurrent neural network trained on the BDT uncovered notably similar latent dynamics. In both networks, neural trajectories diverged sharply from rest along modality-specific directions during stimulus presentation, while remained at rest during stimulus-absent trials. Subsequently, trajectories rotated toward a mnemonic subspace, where perceptual decisions (acoustic, tactile, and absent) were maintained in three distinctly different stable attractors. Using low-dimensional modeling, we propose a universal mechanism for the transition from sensory processing to memory retention explaining both biological and artificial latent neural dynamics in a simple dynamical motif. These results show that VPC neurons encode bimodal information, can integrate competing sensory inputs, and maintain multimodal perceptual decisions.

Disciplines :

Life sciences: Multidisciplinary, general & others

Author, co-author :

Andrade-Ortega, Bernardo ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular ─ Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico City, Mexico

Díaz, Héctor ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular ─ Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico City, Mexico

Bayones, Lucas ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular ─ Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico City, Mexico

Alvarez, Manuel ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular ─ Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico City, Mexico

Zainos, Antonio ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular ─ Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico City, Mexico

Rivera-Yoshida, Natsuko ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular ─ Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico City, Mexico

Franci, Alessio ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'électricité, électronique et informatique (Institut Montefiore) > Brain-Inspired Computing ; WEL Research Institute, avenue Pasteur, 6, 1300 Wavre, Belgique

Romo, Ranulfo ; El Colegio Nacional, 06020 Mexico City, Mexico

Rossi-Pool, Román ; Instituto de Fisiología Celular ─ Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico City, Mexico ; Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico City, Mexico

Language :

English

Title :

Multistable bimodal perceptual coding within the ventral premotor cortex.

Publication date :

19 September 2025

Journal title :

Science Advances

eISSN :

2375-2548

Publisher :

American Association for the Advancement of Science, United States

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

eadw5500

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.adw5500

Funding text :

This work was supported by grants PAPIIT-IN 210819 (to R.R. and R.R.-P.), PAPIIT-IN 205022 (to R.R.-P.), and IN203825 (to R.R.-P.) from the Direcci\u00F3n de Asuntos del Personal Acad\u00E9mico de la Universidad Nacional Aut\u00F3noma de M\u00E9xico; CONAHCYT-240892 (to R.R.) and CONAHCYT-319347 (to R.R.-P.) from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnolog\u00EDa; SECIHTI-CBF- 2025-I-2054 (to R.R.-P.) from Secretaria de Ciencia, Humanidades, Tecnolog\u00EDa e Innovaci\u00F3n; and IBRO Early Career Award 2022 (to R.R.-P.) from International Brain Research Association. H.D. is a doctoral student from Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias Biom\u00E9dicas, UNAM. L.B. is a postdoctoral researcher (Postdoctoral fellowship CONACYT-838783)

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since 13 March 2026

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