The brain is always spontaneously active even in the absence of explicit stimuli coming from the outside world. What is the meaning of such activity? While it is now accepted that spontaneous activity does not simply represent “noise” in the brain, its functional role remains elusive. In particular, it remains unclear whether changes in the population activity of cortical neurons can affect performances in tasks that require discriminating a feature of a stimulus, for example, the frequency (low/high) of a sound. In this project we aimed at answering this intriguing question.
Answering this question is of paramount importance for many reasons. First, it would solve a long-studied mystery in neuroscience. Second, it would provide indications of how altered spontaneous activity, for example in diseases such as Schizophrenia, may functionally affect brain function. Third, understanding the causal role of spontaneous activity on behavioral performances may lead to potentially innovative technological avenues to boost human performances.
The objective of this study is to implement cutting-edge behavioral, electrophysiological and computational techniques to elucidate the functional role of spontaneous neuronal activity for the decision making process. To achieve this goal, we aim at creating expectations about upcoming sensory stimuli in head-fixed mice and test whether such expectation may affect behavior and could be modulated optogenetically. Furthermore, we want to understand the neuronal basis of how expectation can affect behavioral responses.
