In order to survive, an animal's behaviour must be flexible. This flexibility allows animals to react differently to the same stimuli depending on the context. For example, the smell of smoke will elicit very different responses if one is in their home, or near a barbecue. How the brain selects different actions in response to the same stimulus remains a mystery. Such context-dependent adaptation of behaviour is a key component of cognitive control. While the neural correlates of these phenomena have been traditionally studied in humans and primates, rodents also possess sophisticated cognitive abilities, and provide an opportunity to develop a detailed circuit-level understanding of cognitive processes. In this talk, I will describe work from my lab studying multiple brain regions involved in flexible behaviour. I will discuss how the visual cortex adapts during learning and attention to enhance the processing of behaviourally relevant visual stimuli. Additionally, I will explain the role of the prefrontal cortex in guiding cognitive shifts by detecting violations of predictions about the world, or prediction-errors. These studies combine multidisciplinary methodologies, including cognitive behaviour in mice, longitudinal two-photon calcium imaging, and optogenetic circuit perturbations.
Organizer
Laurens Bosman
l.bosman@erasmusmc.nl