Lateral Propagation from Sensory Cortex Provides Differential Gain for Sensory Selection
- 1University of California Riverside
Abstract
Selectively responding to target stimuli while ignoring distractors is a fundamental cognitive ability. In neocortex, such selection is associated with enhanced responses to target stimuli relative to distractor stimuli, yet the gain mechanisms underlying this differential responsivity are poorly understood. Most proposed gain mechanisms emphasize modulation within the center response field of a stimulus. In contrast, here we investigate modulation of lateral propagation from the center response field as a potential gain mechanism during a whisker-based selective detection task in mice. Both target (Go) and distractor (NoGo) stimuli evoked activity that propagated beyond their center response fields, with substantially greater lateral propagation for target stimuli. Target-evoked propagation increased with task learning and, in expert mice, exhibited the spatiotemporal characteristics of a traveling cortical wave preferentially involving infragranular layers. Furthermore, we demonstrate that frontal cortex actively suppresses distractor-evoked sensory responses, including both center region activity and lateral cortical recruitment. Computational modeling showed that modulation of lateral excitation could reproduce key features of these experimental findings. Together, our results support the regulation of lateral cortical propagation as a mechanism for differentially amplifying behaviorally relevant sensory representations during sensory selection.
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BibTeX
@misc{lam2026lateral,
title = {{Lateral Propagation from Sensory Cortex Provides Differential Gain for Sensory Selection}},
author = {A. Lam and S. Kabbara and A. Tejada and H. Yang and E. Nozari and E. Zagha},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.23.761374},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.23.761374v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Lateral Propagation from Sensory Cortex Provides Differential Gain for Sensory Selection
AU - A. Lam
AU - S. Kabbara
AU - A. Tejada
AU - H. Yang
AU - E. Nozari
AU - E. Zagha
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.23.761374
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.23.761374v1
AB - Selectively responding to target stimuli while ignoring distractors is a fundamental cognitive ability. In neocortex, such selection is associated with enhanced responses to target stimuli relative to distractor stimuli, yet the gain mechanisms underlying this differential responsivity are poorly understood. Most proposed gain mechanisms emphasize modulation within the center response field of a stimulus. In contrast, here we investigate modulation of lateral propagation from the center response field as a potential gain mechanism during a whisker-based selective detection task in mice. Both target (Go) and distractor (NoGo) stimuli evoked activity that propagated beyond their center response fields, with substantially greater lateral propagation for target stimuli. Target-evoked propagation increased with task learning and, in expert mice, exhibited the spatiotemporal characteristics of a traveling cortical wave preferentially involving infragranular layers. Furthermore, we demonstrate that frontal cortex actively suppresses distractor-evoked sensory responses, including both center region activity and lateral cortical recruitment. Computational modeling showed that modulation of lateral excitation could reproduce key features of these experimental findings. Together, our results support the regulation of lateral cortical propagation as a mechanism for differentially amplifying behaviorally relevant sensory representations during sensory selection.
SN - 2692-8205
ER -