Work

Top-down modulation of sensory processing and mismatch in the mouse posterior parietal cortex

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: An important function of the neocortex is to compare sensory feedback stimuli with internal predictions of the outside world and evoke mismatch responses to deviations, thus allowing expectations to be updated. The mechanisms behind sensory feedback mismatch and prediction formation however remain unclear. Here we created a learned association of an auditory-tactile stimulus sequence in awake head-fixed mice, where a sound predicted an up-coming whisker stimulus and introduced mismatches by omitting or altering the whisker stimulus intensity. We showed that layer 2/3 posterior parietal cortex (PPC) neurons could report stimulus sequence mismatches, as well as display neural correlates of expectation. Inhibition of PPC-projecting secondary motor cortex (M2) neurons suppressed these correlates, along with population mismatch responses. Hence, M2 can influence sensory processing in the PPC and potentially contribute to the prediction of sensory feedback from learned relationships within sequences of sensory stimuli.

Source: Nature Communications

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-58002-2

Authors: Constanze Raltschev, Sergej Kasavica, Benjamin Leonardon, Thomas Nevian, Shankar Sachidhanandam

Institutions: University of Bern, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Language: English

Topic: Multisensory perception and integration

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $6,990

Funder: Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung