Abstract
Intentional control over external objects is informed by our sensory experience of them, in a continuous dialogue between action and perception. How such control is represented at the sensory level, however, is not understood. Here we devised a brain machine interface (BMI) task that enabled mice to guide a visual cursor to a target location for reward, using activity in brain areas recorded with widefield calcium imaging. Parietal and higher visual cortical regions were more engaged when expert animals controlled the cursor, but not in naïve mice learning the task. Intentional control enhanced responses: single-cell recordings from parietal cortex indicated that the same visual cursor elicited larger responses when mice controlled it than when they passively viewed it. Moreover, neural responses were greater when the cursor was moving towards the target than away from it. Thus, the sensory representation of a causally-controlled object is sensitive to a subject’s intention, as well as the object’s instantaneous trajectory relative to the subject’s goal: potentially strengthening the sensory feedback signal to adjudicating areas for exerting more fluent control.
