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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2025.08.27.672629

Mice wiggle a wheel to boost the salience of low visual contrast stimuli

Ghani, N.
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Abstract

From the Welsh tidy mouse to the New York City pizza rat, movement reveals rodent intelligence. Here, we show that some head-fixed mice developed an active sensing strategy in a visual perceptual decision-making task. Akin to humans shaking a computer mouse to find the cursor on a scree n, some mice wiggled a wheel that controlled the movement of a visual stimulus preferentially during low-contrast trials. When mice wiggled the wheel, the low visual stimulus contrast accuracy increased. Moreover, these wiggles moved the visual stimulus at a temporal frequency (11.5 {+/-} 2.5 Hz) within the range that maximizes contrast sensitivity in rodents. Perturbing the task contingency and visuo-motor coupling reduced wiggle behavior. The performance benefit of wiggle behavior persisted after controlling for arousal state, establishing wiggling as an active sensing strategy rather than an arousal-driven byproduct. Together, these results show that some mice wiggle the wheel to boost the salience of low visual contrast stimuli. This provides evidence for active sensing in head-fixed mouse vision. HighlightsO_LIWiggle speed positively correlates with low-contrast visual accuracy across 213 mice C_LIO_LIWiggles generate stimulus motion at a temporal frequency near maximal contrast sensitivity C_LIO_LIReversing task contingency or uncoupling the wheel suppresses wiggling C_LIO_LILonger wiggles are associated with enhanced neural decoding of stimulus identity in midbrain and thalamus C_LI

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Ghani, N.. 2025-08-30. Mice wiggle a wheel to boost the salience of low visual contrast stimuli. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.08.27.672629

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