Fig. 2: Responses of ACC neurons in a visual sensorimotor task.

a Trial events during the task (top) and schematic showing the sensorimotor contingency during the inward task (bottom). Mice rotate the ball to center visual cues presented on either side of the screen. Correct responding moves the cue to the center of the screen, whereas incorrect responding moves it to the side. b Schematic showing the relationship between paw positions for spontaneous turns in freely moving mice and ball rotations in head-fixed mice. Actions are labeled contraversive and ipsiversive relative to the left hemisphere. c Behavioral performance of mice trained on this task for various optogenetic inactivation experiments (n = 29 mice). Dashed lines indicate mean. d Two-photon calcium imaging of GCaMP6s-expressing layer 5 neurons (green, GCaMP6s). Activity of 1156 neurons is reported from five expert mice (eight behavioral sessions, 1–3 from each mouse). Similar labeling was observed in all five mice tested. Scale bar, 50 µm. e Activity of two example ACC neurons during the task. Responses on right and left cue trials with contraversive (contra; gray) or ipsiversive (ipsi; blue) actions are shown. Responses on individual trials (rows in top color plots), trial-averaged responses on the indicated trial type (middle), and trial-averaged ball positions (bottom) are shown. Note that rows above and below the redline in color plots show trials with contra and ipsi actions, respectively. Vertical dotted lines correspond to the time of stimulus (stim) onset and horizontal dotted lines show a ball position of 0. f Session-averaged activity of individual ACC neurons for the indicated trial type is shown. Each row corresponds to the same neuron across the four plots. Dotted lines show stimulus onset. g Average z-scored (z-scr) responses on right and left cue trials with contraversive and ipsiversive actions (right cue, contraversive vs. ipsiversive: p = 0.010, z = −2.56; left cue, contraversive vs. ipsiversive: p = 1.56 × 10⁻⁷, z = −5.25; box plot elements: center line, median; box limits, upper and lower quartiles; whiskers, 1.5 × interquartile range; outliers not shown; n = 1156 neurons from 5 mice). *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.005, two-tailed Wilcoxon signed-rank test. h Percentage of ACC neurons with a significant difference in response to contraversive vs. ipsiversive actions for right and left cues (n = 1156 neurons from five mice). Error bars show 95% binomial confidence intervals. i Average responses on right vs. left cue trials (p = 9.7 × 10⁻⁸, z = 5.33) and contraversive vs. ipsiversive trials (p = 5.9 × 10⁻⁶, z  = −4.53; n = 1156 neurons from five mice). ***p < 0.005, two-tailed Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Box plot conventions are the same as g.