RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Manipulating synthetic optogenetic odors reveals the coding logic of olfactory perception
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 841916
DO 10.1101/841916
A1 Edmund Chong
A1 Monica Moroni
A1 Christopher Wilson
A1 Shy Shoham
A1 Stefano Panzeri
A1 Dmitry Rinberg
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/11/16/841916.abstract
AB How does neural activity generate perception? The spatial identities and temporal latencies of activated units correlate with external sensory features, but finding the principal activity subspace that is consequential for perception, remains challenging. We trained mice to recognize synthetic odors constructed from parametrically-defined patterns of optogenetic activation, then measured perceptual changes during extensive and controlled perturbations across spatio-temporal dimensions. We modelled recognition as the matching of patterns to learned templates, finding that perceptually-meaningful templates are sequences of spatially-identified units, ordered by latencies relative to each other (with minimal effects of sniff). Within templates, individual units contribute additively, with larger contributions from earlier-activated units. Our synthetic approach reveals the fundamental logic of the olfactory code, and provides a general framework for testing links between sensory activity and perception.