Biology subjects

Shusterman, R.

Publications and source records attributed to Shusterman, R..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2019

Phasic dopamine enhances the distinct decoding and perceived salience of stimuli

Subjects learn to assign value to stimuli that predict outcomes. Novelty, rewards or punishment evoke reinforcing phasic dopamine release from midbrain neurons to ventral striatum that mediates expected value and salience of stimuli in humans and animals. It is however not clear whether phasic dopamine release is sufficient to form distinct engrams that encode salient stimuli within these circuits. We addressed this question in awake mice. Evoked phasic dopamine induced plasticity selectively to the population encoding of coincidently presented stimuli and increased their distinctness from other stimuli. Phasic dopamine thereby enhanced the decoding of previously paired stimuli and increased their perceived salience. This dopamine-induced plasticity mimicked population coding dynamics of conditioned stimuli during reinforcement learning. These findings provide a network coding mechanism of how dopaminergic learning signals promote value assignment to stimulus representations.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Discovering precise temporal patterns in large-scale neural recordings through robust and interpretable time warping

Though the temporal precision of neural computation has been studied intensively, a data-driven determination of this precision remains a fundamental challenge. Reproducible spike time patterns may be obscured on single trials by uncontrolled temporal variability in behavior and cognition, or may not even be time locked to measurable signatures in either behavior or local field potentials (LFP). To overcome these challenges, we describe a general-purpose time warping framework that reveals precise spike-time patterns in an unsupervised manner, even when spiking is decoupled from behavior or is temporally stretched across single trials. We demonstrate this method across diverse systems: cued reaching in nonhuman primates, motor sequence production in rats, and olfaction in mice. This approach flexibly uncovers diverse dynamical firing patterns, including pulsatile responses to behavioral events, LFP-aligned oscillatory spiking, and even unanticipated patterns, like 7 Hz oscillations in rat motor cortex that are not time-locked to measured behaviors or LFP.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Sniff invariant odor coding

Sampling regulates stimulus intensity and temporal dynamics at the sense organ. Despite variations in sampling behavior, animals must make veridical perceptual judgments about external stimuli. In olfaction, odor sampling varies with respiration, which influences neural responses at the olfactory periphery. Nevertheless, rats were able to perform fine odor intensity judgments despite variations in sniff kinetics. To identify the features of neural activity supporting stable intensity perception, in awake mice we measured responses of Mitral/Tufted (MT) cells to different odors and concentrations across a range of sniff frequencies. Amplitude and latency of the MT cells responses vary with sniff duration. A fluid dynamics (FD) model based on odor concentration kinetics in the intranasal cavity can account for this variability. Eliminating sniff waveform dependence of MT cell responses using the FD model significantly improves concentration decoding. This suggests potential schemes for sniff waveform invariant odor concentration coding.\n\nHighlightsO_LIOdor concentration discrimination does not depend on sniff frequency\nC_LIO_LIAmplitude and latency of MT cell responses vary with sniff frequency\nC_LIO_LIA fluid dynamic based model accounts for sniff dependent variability in the responses\nC_LIO_LITransforming MT cell responses with this model achieves sniff invariant coding\nC_LI

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Odor concentration change detectors in the Olfactory Bulb

Dynamical changes in the environment strongly impact our perception 1,2. Consistent with this, sensory systems preferentially represent stimulus changes, enhancing temporal contrast 3,4. In olfaction, odor concentration changes across consecutive inhalations ({Delta}Ct) can guide odor source localization. Yet the neural representation of {Delta}Ct has not been studied in vertebrates. We have found that a subset of mitral/tufted (M/T) cells in the olfactory bulb explicitly represent {Delta}Ct. These concentration change detectors are direction selective: some respond to positive {Delta}Ct, while others represent negative {Delta}Ct. This change detection enhances the contrast between different concentrations and the magnitude of contrast enhancement scales with the size of the concentration step. Further, {Delta}Ct can be read out from the total spike count per sniff, unlike odor identity and intensity, which are represented by fast temporal spike patterns. Our results demonstrate that a subset of M/T cells explicitly represents {Delta}Ct, providing a signal that may instruct navigational decisions in downstream olfactory circuits.

neuroscience↗