美国艾伦脑科学研究所Michael A. Buice、Jerome A. Lecoq、Saskia E. J. de Vries课题组合作组织一项大规模的标准化生理研究，该研究揭示了小鼠视觉皮层的功能组织。相关论文2019年12月16日在线发表于《自然—神经科学》。

他们报告了一项开放的、大规模的清醒小鼠视觉皮层活动生理研究：艾伦大脑天文台视觉编码数据集。该公开可用的数据集包括来自243个成年小鼠的六个视觉区域、四个层和12个转基因小鼠品系的近60,000个神经元的皮层活动，以响应一组系统的视觉刺激。

他们根据关节对多种刺激的可靠反应对神经元进行分类，并通过视觉应答模型验证该功能分类。虽然大多数类别的特征是对特定刺激子集的反应，但最大类别对任何刺激均不能可靠地做出反应，并且在较高的视觉区域该类别逐渐变大。

这些类别揭示了一种功能组织，其中假定的背侧区域显示了视觉运动信号的专职化。

据介绍，要了解大脑如何处理感觉信息来指导行为，必须知道刺激信号如何在整个视觉皮层中转换。

附：英文原文

Title: A large-scale standardized physiological survey reveals functional organization of the mouse visual cortex

Author: Saskia E. J. de Vries, Jerome A. Lecoq, Michael A. Buice, Peter A. Groblewski, Gabriel K. Ocker, Michael Oliver, David Feng, Nicholas Cain, Peter Ledochowitsch, Daniel Millman, Kate Roll, Marina Garrett, Tom Keenan, Leonard Kuan, Stefan Mihalas, Shawn Olsen, Carol Thompson, Wayne Wakeman, Jack Waters, Derric Williams, Chris Barber, Nathan Berbesque, Brandon Blanchard, Nicholas Bowles, Shiella D. Caldejon, Linzy Casal, Andrew Cho, Sissy Cross, Chinh Dang, Tim Dolbeare, Melise Edwards, John Galbraith, Nathalie Gaudreault, Terri L. Gilbert, Fiona Griffin, Perry Hargrave, Robert Howard, Lawrence Huang, Sean Jewell, Nika Keller, Ulf Knoblich, Josh D. Larkin, Rachael Larsen, Chris Lau, Eric Lee, Felix Lee, Arielle Leon, Lu Li, Fuhui Long, Jennifer Luviano, Kyla Mace, Thuyanh Nguyen, Jed Perkins, Miranda Robertson, Sam Seid, Eric Shea-Brown, Jianghong Shi, Nathan Sjoquist, Cliff Slaughterbeck, David Sullivan, Ryan Valenza, Casey White, Ali Williford, Daniela M. Witten, Jun Zhuang, Hongkui Zeng, Colin Farrell, Lydia Ng, Amy Bernard, John W. Phillips, R. Clay Reid, Christof Koch

Issue&Volume: 2019-12-16

Abstract: To understand how the brain processes sensory information to guide behavior, we must know how stimulus representations are transformed throughout the visual cortex. Here we report an open, large-scale physiological survey of activity in the awake mouse visual cortex: the Allen Brain Observatory Visual Coding dataset. This publicly available dataset includes the cortical activity of nearly 60,000 neurons from six visual areas, four layers, and 12 transgenic mouse lines in a total of 243 adult mice, in response to a systematic set of visual stimuli. We classify neurons on the basis of joint reliabilities to multiple stimuli and validate this functional classification with models of visual responses. While most classes are characterized by responses to specific subsets of the stimuli, the largest class is not reliably responsive to any of the stimuli and becomes progressively larger in higher visual areas. These classes reveal a functional organization wherein putative dorsal areas show specialization for visual motion signals.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-019-0550-9

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0550-9