Fig. 1: Context-choice association task for studying stability of cortical representations in mice.

a Experimental setup. Mice use a rotary joystick to choose left or right trajectories depending on the visual context. Neural activity is recorded using a two-photon microscope²³. s = trial start; d = decision point; e = trial end. b Behavioral performance across 5 consecutive days (n = 18 experiments in 6 mice). Performance remained above chance in all experiments (median): day 1 = 72.1%, day 2 = 74.5%, day 3 = 75.5%, day 4 = 72.5%, day 5 = 76.9%. Dots, individual sessions; black overlay, median ± 75% CIs. c Example experiments showing the number of behavioral responses across 5 days of experimentation (more examples in Supplementary Fig. 1a). CL correct left, IR incorrect right, IL incorrect left, CR correct right. d Heatmap showing the lowest number of behavioral responses of any type in each experiment. For instance, on day 4 experiment 8 (Fig. 1c) there are 29 CL, 9 IR, 7 IL, and 34 CR responses. Thus, the lowest number of behavioral responses is 7. Only experiments with at least 2 responses from each trial type are considered for further analyses. e Map showing the location of included (cyan) and excluded (magenta) experiments for all comparisons between days 1 and 2. See Supplementary Fig. 1b, c for maps of all comparisons between days. f Example cells imaged across 5 days of experimentation (30 × 30 μm field). Note the stability of the imaging field (green), regardless of variability in activity levels (red). g We estimated the stability of ROIs by calculating the SSI between 30 μm square regions surrounding each ROI across days, and compared that to a null distribution of SSIs (see “Methods” section; Supplementary Fig. 3). Only ROIs with a SSI higher than the 95th CI of their null SSI were considered for further analyses. h Activity traces for two example cells. Note conserved dynamics across days (cell 1 principally responds in context 1; cell 2 responds in both contexts). Source data for B, C, D, and G are provided as a Source Data file.