普林斯顿大学Ilana B. Witten团队的一项最新研究开发出了复杂行为时的全脑神经活动图。这一研究成果发表在2025年9月3日出版的国际学术期刊《自然》上。

在这里，该课题组报告了一套全面的记录，来自12个实验室的139只小鼠的621733个神经元，用699个神经像素探针记录。这些数据是从执行一项涉及感觉、运动和认知成分的决策任务的小鼠中获得的。探针覆盖了左前脑、中脑、右后脑和小脑的279个脑区。课题组提供了这个全脑图的初步评估，并评估神经活动如何编码关键任务变量。视觉刺激的表征在刺激开始后短暂地出现在经典视觉区域，然后扩散到中脑和后脑区域的斜坡状活动，这些区域也编码选择。神经反应与大脑中几乎所有地方即将发生的运动动作相关。对奖励发放和消费的反应也很普遍。这个公开可用的数据集代表了理解分布在大脑区域之间和内部的计算如何驱动行为的阻力。

据了解，神经科学的一个关键挑战是理解大脑中数百个相互连接的区域中的神经元如何将感觉输入与先前的期望整合起来，从而启动运动并做出决定。如果不同的实验室对不同地区、不同行为的不同记录进行不同的分析，就很难应对这一挑战。

附：英文原文

Title: A brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour

Author: Angelaki, Dora, Benson, Brandon, Benson, Julius, Birman, Daniel, Bonacchi, Niccol, Bougrova, Kcnia, Bruijns, Sebastian A., Carandini, Matteo, Catarino, Joana A., Chapuis, Gaelle A., Churchland, Anne K., Dan, Yang, Davatolhagh, Felicia, Dayan, Peter, DeWitt, Eric EJ, Engel, Tatiana A., Fabbri, Michele, Faulkner, Mayo, Fiete, Ila Rani, Findling, Charles, Freitas-Silva, Laura, Gerek, Berk, Harris, Kenneth D., Husser, Michael, Hofer, Sonja B., Hu, Fei, Hubert, Flix, Huntenburg, Julia M., Khanal, Anup, Krasniak, Christopher S., Langdon, Christopher, Langfield, Christopher, Lau, Petrina Y. P., Mainen, Zachary F., Meijer, Guido T., Miska, Nathaniel J., Mrsic-Flogel, Thomas D., Noel, Jean-Paul, Nylund, Kai, Pan-Vazquez, Alejandro, Paninski, Liam, Pouget, Alexandre, Rossant, Cyrille, Roth, Noam, Schaeffer, Rylan, Schartner, Michael, Shi, Yanliang, Socha, Karolina Z., Steinmetz, Nicholas A., Svoboda, Karel, Urai, Anne E., Wells, Miles J., West, Steven J., Whiteway, Matthew R., Winter, Olivier, Witten, Ilana B.

Issue&Volume: 2025-09-03

Abstract: A key challenge in neuroscience is understanding how neurons in hundreds of interconnected brain regions integrate sensory inputs with previous expectations to initiate movements and make decisions1. It is difficult to meet this challenge if different laboratories apply different analyses to different recordings in different regions during different behaviours. Here we report a comprehensive set of recordings from 621,733 neurons recorded with 699 Neuropixels probes across 139 mice in 12 laboratories. The data were obtained from mice performing a decision-making task with sensory, motor and cognitive components. The probes covered 279 brain areas in the left forebrain and midbrain and the right hindbrain and cerebellum. We provide an initial appraisal of this brain-wide map and assess how neural activity encodes key task variables. Representations of visual stimuli transiently appeared in classical visual areas after stimulus onset and then spread to ramp-like activity in a collection of midbrain and hindbrain regions that also encoded choices. Neural responses correlated with impending motor action almost everywhere in the brain. Responses to reward delivery and consumption were also widespread. This publicly available dataset represents a resource for understanding how computations distributed across and within brain areas drive behaviour.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09235-0

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09235-0