Dynamics of mesoscale brain network during visual discrimination learning revealed by chronic, large-scale single-unit recording.

Abstract

Associating unfamiliar stimuli with appropriate behavior through experience is crucial for survival. While task-relevant information was found to be distributed across multiple brain regions, how regional nodes in this distributed network reorganize their functional interactions throughout learning remains to be elucidated. Here, we performed chronic, large-scale single-unit recording across 10 cortical and subcortical regions using ultra-flexible microelectrode arrays in mice performing a visual decision-making task and tracked mesoscale functional network dynamics throughout learning. Task learning reshaped interregional functional connectivity, leading to the emergence of a subnetwork involving visual and frontal regions during the acquisition of correct No-Go responses. This reorganization was accompanied by a more widespread representation of visual stimulus across regions, and a region's network rank strongly predicted its peak timing of visual information encoding. Together, our findings revealed that mesoscale networks undergo dynamic restructuring during learning, with functional connectivity ranks influencing the propagation of sensory information across the network.