BMI SEMINAR // Dan O'Connor - Tactile processing in mouse cortex depends on action context

I will discuss work from my laboratory using the mouse whisker system to explore the neural basis of touch perception. Tactile processing serves upcoming actions, which depend on behavioral goals. However, it remains unclear how the action context in which tactile inputs occur affects their processing in the brain. It also remains unclear how neural signals related to movements interact with sensory signals in somatosensory cortex. We have developed a cross-modal attention task in which head-fixed mice flexibly switched between responding to tactile stimuli in the presence of visual distractors, or to visual stimuli in the presence of tactile distractors, using licking movements to the left or right side in different blocks of trials. I will discuss our work using this task together with single-unit recordings and optogenetic perturbations of somatosensory cortex, as well as optogenetic perturbations of orofacial motor cortex, to investigate how sensory and motor signals combine in somatosensory cortex, and how the action required of a tactile stimulus affects its processing.