2026/01/20 by Pierre Le Merre, Katharina Heining, Marina Slashcheva +7 · 1 voice · 6 citations
Neuroscience · #Brain mapping #Cognition #Cognitive map #Functional organization #Functional specialization #Memory and Neural Mechanisms #Neural activity #Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies #Neural dynamics and brain function #Prefrontal cortex #Premovement neuronal activity #Systems neuroscience
paper · doi:10.1038/s41593-025-02190-z
published in Nature Neuroscience 29(3), 673-681 (Nature Portfolio)
openalex publication_date 2026/01/20 · openalex created_date 2026/01/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The intrinsic organization underlying the central cognitive role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is poorly understood. We approached organization by profiling the activity and spatial location of >24,000 neurons recorded in awake mice. High-resolution activity maps of the PFC did not align with cytoarchitecturally defined subregions. Instead, spontaneous activity and tuning to choice during a behavioral task were both related to intra-PFC hierarchy, suggesting that connectivity, rather than cytoarchitecture, shapes the PFC's activity landscape. Low-rate, regular spontaneous firing was a hallmark of both the PFC and high hierarchy. Surprisingly, choice tuning was overrepresented in units displaying high spontaneous firing rates, linking connectivity-based hierarchy to distinct functional properties in separate neuronal populations. Our data-driven approach provides a scalable roadmap to explore functional organizations in diverse brain regions and species, opening avenues to obtain an integrated view of activity, structure and function in the brain.