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Neuronal ensembles are groups of neurons with correlated activity
associated with sensory, motor, and behavioral functions. To explore how
ensembles encode information, we investigated responses of visual cortical
neurons in awake mice using volumetric two-photon calcium imaging during
visual stimulation. We identified neuronal ensembles employing an
unsupervised model-free algorithm and, besides neurons activated by the
visual stimulus (termed “onsemble”), we also found neurons that are
specifically inactivated (termed “offsemble”). Offsemble neurons showed
faster calcium decay during stimuli, suggesting selective inhibition. In
response to visual stimuli, each ensemble (onsemble+offsemble) exhibited
small trial-to-trial variability, high orientation selectivity, and
superior predictive accuracy for visual stimulus orientation, surpassing
the sum of individual neuron activity. Thus, the combined selective
activation and inactivation of cortical neurons enhance visual encoding as
an emergent and distributed neural code.
37 views reported since publication in 2023.