Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
197,787 studies31 sourcesUpdated 17 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BYCell

A high-dimensional population code in the bat motor cortex during natural dexterous flight

  • Boaz Styr1
  • Kevin K. Qi2
  • Xing Chen2
  • William A. Liberti3
  • Michael M. Yartsev
  1. 1Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Neuroscience, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. Electronic address: [email protected]
  2. 2Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Biophysics Graduate Group, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
  3. 3Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
Open at sourceDOICite

Abstract

Elucidating the neural computations underlying natural, complex movement remains a fundamental challenge in neuroscience. Bat flight presents a formidable motor control challenge, requiring the use of hand-like wings whose many degrees of freedom must be precisely coordinated to enable rapid three-dimensional maneuvers. Here we performed large-scale wireless recordings of neuronal ensembles from the wing motor cortex of freely flying bats using Neuropixels probes, alongside detailed 3D pose tracking of wing kinematics. Despite the complexity of flight control, bats repeatedly executed highly accurate flights through precise adjustments of individual wingbeats. Surprisingly, motor cortical activity was not dominated by the global wingbeat cycle. Instead, individual neurons were sparsely active, exhibiting mixed selectivity for specific flight kinematics combined with variable entrainment to the wingbeat phase reaching millisecond-scale precision. This yielded a high-dimensional population regime driven by low shared variance across wingbeats, with successive wingbeats occupying distinct neural population states. Our findings reveal that during complex natural behavior the mammalian motor cortex operates in a high-dimensional computational regime that challenges prevailing views of motor cortical computation and underscores the importance of studying ethologically relevant behaviors to uncover neural principles governing brain function.

Related

  1. A shared multi-feature population code for sensory reliability across mouse visual cortex
    Elizabeth M. Edwards, Megan H. Lipton, Anne B. Sereno +1
    Cell ReportsPeer-reviewedCC BY-NC-ND 4.0General biologyCrossref
  2. Decoding natural scenes from patterned optogenetic responses in mouse visual cortex
    S. Jia, T. Xin, C. Li +7
    bioRxivPreprintCC BYFull textNeurosciencebioRxiv
  3. Population connective field modeling reveals proto-retinotopic visual cortex organization in the prenatal human brain
    So-Hyeon Yoo, Anne-Sophie Kieslinger, Michael A. Skeide
    Science AdvancesPeer-reviewedCC BY-NCNeuroscienceCrossref
  4. Distinct population dimensions separate sensory adaptation and expectation-related signals in visual cortex
    S. Kim, A. Vazquez, R. Batista-Brito +1
    bioRxivPreprintCC BYFull textNeurosciencebioRxiv
  5. Somatostatin-excitatory coordination emerges with dexterous motor skill learning
    G. Wheeler Fox, E. T. Wiener, J. N. MacLean
    bioRxivPreprintAll rights reservedFull textNeurosciencebioRxivPMC

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{styr2026highdimensional,
  title = {{A high-dimensional population code in the bat motor cortex during natural dexterous flight}},
  author = {Boaz Styr and Kevin K. Qi and Xing Chen and William A. Liberti and Michael M. Yartsev},
  journal = {Cell},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1016/j.cell.2026.09.029},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2026.09.029},
  note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - A high-dimensional population code in the bat motor cortex during natural dexterous flight
AU  - Boaz Styr
AU  - Kevin K. Qi
AU  - Xing Chen
AU  - William A. Liberti
AU  - Michael M. Yartsev
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/01
JO  - Cell
DO  - 10.1016/j.cell.2026.09.029
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2026.09.029
AB  - Elucidating the neural computations underlying natural, complex movement remains a fundamental challenge in neuroscience. Bat flight presents a formidable motor control challenge, requiring the use of hand-like wings whose many degrees of freedom must be precisely coordinated to enable rapid three-dimensional maneuvers. Here we performed large-scale wireless recordings of neuronal ensembles from the wing motor cortex of freely flying bats using Neuropixels probes, alongside detailed 3D pose tracking of wing kinematics. Despite the complexity of flight control, bats repeatedly executed highly accurate flights through precise adjustments of individual wingbeats. Surprisingly, motor cortical activity was not dominated by the global wingbeat cycle. Instead, individual neurons were sparsely active, exhibiting mixed selectivity for specific flight kinematics combined with variable entrainment to the wingbeat phase reaching millisecond-scale precision. This yielded a high-dimensional population regime driven by low shared variance across wingbeats, with successive wingbeats occupying distinct neural population states. Our findings reveal that during complex natural behavior the mammalian motor cortex operates in a high-dimensional computational regime that challenges prevailing views of motor cortical computation and underscores the importance of studying ethologically relevant behaviors to uncover neural principles governing brain function.
SN  - 0092-8674
SN  - 1097-4172
ER  -