Action representation in the mouse parieto-frontal network

Abstract

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC), along with anatomically linked frontal areas, form a cortical network which mediates several functions that support goal-directed behavior, including sensorimotor transformations and decision making. In primates, this network also links performed and observed actions via mirror neurons, which fire both when an individual performs an action and when they observe the same action performed by a conspecific. Mirror neurons are thought to be important for social learning and imitation, but it is not known whether mirror-like neurons occur in similar networks in other species that can learn socially, such as rodents. We therefore imaged Ca2+ responses in large neural ensembles in PPC and secondary motor cortex (M2) while mice performed and observed several actions in pellet reaching and wheel running tasks. In all animals, we found spatially overlapping neural ensembles in PPC and M2 that robustly encoded a variety of naturalistic behaviors, and that subsets of cells could stably encode multiple actions. However, neural responses to the same set of observed actions were absent in both brain areas, and across animals. Statistical modeling analyses also showed that performed actions, especially those that were task-specific, outperformed observed actions in predicting neural responses. Overall, these findings show that performed and observed actions do not drive the same cells in the parieto-frontal network in mice, and suggest that sensorimotor mirroring in the mammalian cortex may have evolved more recently, and only in certain species.