Extended Data Fig. 7: Extended analysis and relevant controls of PL RS and FS cells, and differential encoding of task relevant variables across the MD and PL.
From: Thalamic circuits for independent control of prefrontal signal and noise
a, Two example excitatory PL neurons shown in Fig. 3c, sorted by momentary cue (cue-sorted) and attentional choice (choice-sorted). The earlier-responding neuron (left) shows selectivity to momentary cue and the later-responding neuron (right) shows selectivity to the attentional choice (***p = 6.17x10-4; *p = 0.0157; Mann-Whitney U test). In contrast, there are weak choice selectivity for the earlier-responding neuron and weak cue selectivity for the later-responding neuron. b, Quantification of PL population selectivity to momentary cue (top) and attentional choice (bottom) using linear decoding (n=1112 neurons from 7 mice). Note that population cue selectivity is strong early on but gradually decreases, while population choice selectivity peaks late in the cueing period. c, Quantification of PL population selectivity to momentary cue (top) and attentional choice (bottom) using mutual information. d, Example putative inhibitory fast spiking neuron, showing higher firing rate for trials with high conflict, and little attentional choice selectivity. This neuron shows similar selectivity to the example conflict-preferring MD neuron (Fig. 3f). e, Quantification of selectivity of putative inhibitory fast spiking neuron population in PL to momentary cue (top) and attentional choice (bottom) using linear decoding (n = 104 neurons from 7 mice). The selectivity for both cue and choice are weak compared to the putative excitatory neuron population (b). f, Quantification of conflict selectivity of putative inhibitory fast spiking neuron population in PL using linear decoding, showing strong conflict selectivity. g, Quantification of PL and MD population selectivity to conflict (top) and attentional choice (bottom) using linear decoding. MD population demonstrates strong conflict and weak choice selectivity (n = 2669 neurons from 7 mice), while PL population demonstrates strong choice and weak conflict selectivity. h, Choice modulated PL neurons demonstrate moderate conflict selectivity (*p = 0.046 choice, *p = 0.02 choice; permutation test). In contrast, conflict modulated MD neurons have no choice selectivity (***p = 0.0005 conflict, p=0.695 choice (NS); permutation test). n=50 most modulated neurons each. i, Optical inactivation of PL and MD result in distinct impairments in task performance across different levels of conflict driven input uncertainty. The magnitude of optical PL inactivation is titrated to match the task performance on low conflict trials with optical MD inactivation. PL inactivation results in comparable impairments in performance accuracy across low and high conflict trials, while MD inactivation has a stronger effect on high conflict trials compared to low conflict trials (n =13 sessions from 5 mice; ***p<0.001, Mann-Whitney U test). j, MD deafferentiation during the cueing period impairs performance more strongly on high conflict trials than on low conflict trials (n = 37 sessions over 6 mice; ***p=4.84 x 10-6 (relative conflict = 0.28); ***p= 1 x 10-15 (relative conflict=0.5); chi-squared test), similar to optical MD inactivation (Fig. 3e). k, Quantification of MD population conflict selectivity and PL population choice selectivity. MD deafferentiation annihilates MD conflict classification accuracy and weakens PL choice classification accuracy (n = 386 putative excitatory neurons and n = 666 MD neurons from 3 mice; **p = 0.005 (MD conflict, Laser OFF); p = 0.96 (NS, MD conflict, Laser ON); **p = 0.0042 (MD conflict, Laser OFF vs ON); **p = 0.005 (PL choice, Laser OFF); *p = 0.048 (PL choice, Laser ON); *p = 0.012 (PL choice, Laser OFF vs ON); permutation test). l, MD deafferentiation result in lowered firing rate in MD (***p = 9.32x10-11) and higher firing rate in PL excitatory neurons (*p = 0.0231; Wilcoxon signed-rank test). Data is pooled over conflict-preferring MD neurons (n = 201 neurons), and choice-selective PL neurons (n = 85 neurons,). m, MD neurons respond to conflict earlier in time compared to PL excitatory neurons (*p = 0.0289; Mann-Whitney U test). Shown are the latency to reach maximum regression coefficient after the conflict signal emerges. n, Data in Fig. 3e reorganized, highlighting the effect of MD inhibition on trials with low (0.28) and high (0.5) conflict. o, p, A mean-field neural model, which describes choice accumulation in the PL recaptures experimental data in n (n = 2,000 trials, *p = 0.0137; ***p = 1.18 x 10-6; chi-squared test). q, Data in j reorganized, highlighting the effect of optical inhibition of PL→MD terminals on trials with low and high conflict. r, Mean-field neural model (see Extended Data Fig. 7o) captures the effect of inhibition of PL→MD terminals on task performance (n = 2,000 trials, *p = 0.0189; ***p = 4.90 x 10-6; chi-squared test). All statistical tests are two-tailed. For box plots h, k-n, q boundaries, 25–75th percentiles; midline, median; whiskers, minimum–maximum. Data are presented as mean ± SEM for i, j, p, r, and mean ± CI for b, c, e-g
