Cortex-wide characterization of decision-making behavior during a spatial navigation task

Abstract

Using a head-mounted mesoscope, widefield calcium dynamics were recorded during an 8-maze task in freely moving mice, and a k-means clustering algorithm was utilized to identify 11 discrete cortical states. A significant increase in the usage of a visual/retrosplenial cortex state was observed during the decision phase of a memory-guided paradigm compared to a visually-guided paradigm suggesting prolonged evidence accumulation. A cortical state consisting of secondary motor cortex and posterior parietal cortex activation had a significantly higher probability during the visually-guided paradigm, indicating more efficient sensorimotor transformation during this task. Distinct motifs of cortical state activations suggest the visually- guided task elicited a higher probability of anterior to posterior feedback and used the posterior parietal cortex for feedforward sensory integration to a lesser extent than the memory-guided task. These findings show distinct differences in how information is processed during variations of decision tasks.