瑞士日内瓦大学Alexandre Pouget小组研制了小鼠决策过程中先验信息的全脑表征。该项研究成果发表在2025年9月3日出版的《自然》上。

为了研究它们，该课题组人员检查了国际脑实验室收集的全脑神经像素记录和宽视场钙成像。老鼠被训练来指示一个视觉光栅刺激的位置，它出现在不同长度的块的左边或右边，先验概率在0.2和0.8之间交替。该课题组研究人员发现，小鼠估计这个先验概率，从而提高他们的决策准确性。

此外，研究小组报告说，这种主观先验至少在20%到30%的大脑区域编码，值得注意的是，这些区域跨越了所有的加工水平，从早期的感觉区域（外侧膝状核和初级视觉皮层）到运动区域（次级和初级运动皮层和巨细胞网状核）和高级皮质区域（前扣带背区和腹侧眶额皮质）。先验的这种广泛表示与贝叶斯推理的神经模型是一致的，该模型涉及区域之间的循环，而不是仅将先验纳入决策区域的模型。这项研究为细胞分辨率下的先验编码提供了一个全脑视角，强调了在单一标准化任务上对大规模录音进行主题化的重要性。

据了解，关于世界状态的先验信息的神经表征被理解得很差。

附：英文原文

Title: Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making

Author: Findling, Charles, Hubert, Felix, Acerbi, Luigi, Benson, Brandon, Benson, Julius, Birman, Daniel, Bonacchi, Niccol, Buchanan, E. Kelly, Bruijns, Sebastian, Carandini, Matteo, Catarino, Joana A., Chapuis, Gaelle A., Churchland, Anne K., Dan, Yang, Davatolhagh, Felicia, DeWitt, Eric E. J., Engel, Tatiana A., Fabbri, Michele, Faulkner, Mayo A., Fiete, Ila Rani, Freitas-Silva, Laura, Gerek, Berk, Harris, Kenneth D., Husser, Michael, Hofer, Sonja B., Hu, Fei, Huntenburg, Julia M., Khanal, Anup, Krasniak, Chris, Langdon, Christopher, Langfield, Christopher A., Latham, Peter E., Lau, Petrina Y. P., Mainen, Zach, Meijer, Guido T., Miska, Nathaniel J., Mrsic-Flogel, Thomas D., Noel, Jean-Paul, Nylund, Kai, Pan-Vazquez, Alejandro, Paninski, Liam, Pillow, Jonathan, Rossant, Cyrille, Roth, Noam, Schaeffer, Rylan, Schartner, Michael, Shi, Yanliang, Socha, Karolina Z., Steinmetz, Nicholas A., Svoboda, Karel, Tessereau, Charline, Urai, Anne E., Wells, Miles J., West, Steven Jon, Whiteway, Matthew R., Winter, Olivier, Witten, Ilana B., Zador, Anthony, Zhang, Yizi, Dayan, Peter, Pouget, Alexandre

Issue&Volume: 2025-09-03

Abstract: The neural representations of prior information about the state of the world are poorly understood1. Here, to investigate them, we examined brain-wide Neuropixels recordings and widefield calcium imaging collected by the International Brain Laboratory. Mice were trained to indicate the location of a visual grating stimulus, which appeared on the left or right with a prior probability alternating between 0.2 and 0.8 in blocks of variable length. We found that mice estimate this prior probability and thereby improve their decision accuracy. Furthermore, we report that this subjective prior is encoded in at least 20% to 30% of brain regions that, notably, span all levels of processing, from early sensory areas (the lateral geniculate nucleus and primary visual cortex) to motor regions (secondary and primary motor cortex and gigantocellular reticular nucleus) and high-level cortical regions (the dorsal anterior cingulate area and ventrolateral orbitofrontal cortex). This widespread representation of the prior is consistent with a neural model of Bayesian inference involving loops between areas, as opposed to a model in which the prior is incorporated only in decision-making areas. This study offers a brain-wide perspective on prior encoding at cellular resolution, underscoring the importance of using large-scale recordings on a single standardized task.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09226-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09226-1