NMDAR-Dependent Emergence of Behavioral Representation in Primary Visual Cortex

Abstract

Although neocortical sensory areas are generally thought to faithfully represent external stimuli, cortical networks exhibit considerable functional plasticity, allowing them to modify their output to reflect ongoing behavioral demands. We apply longitudinal 2-photon imaging of activity in the primary visual cortex (V1) of mice learning a conditioned eyeblink task to investigate the dynamic representations of task-relevant information. We find that, although all V1 neurons robustly and stably encode visual input, pyramidal cells and parvalbumin-expressing interneurons exhibit experience-dependent emergence of accurate behavioral representations during learning. The functional plasticity driving performance-predictive activity requires cell-autonomous expression of NMDA-type glutamate receptors. Our findings demonstrate that accurate encoding of behavioral output is not inherent to V1 but develops during learning to support visual task performance.