Fig. 1: Attractor dynamics in head-fixed mice observing aggression.
From: Causal evidence of a line attractor encoding an affective state
a, The experimental paradigm for 2P imaging in head-fixed mice observing aggression. b, Representative FOV through a GRIN lens in the 2P set-up (top). Bottom, fluorescence image of a coronal slice showing expression of jGCaMP7s and ChRmine. Scale bars, 100 µm. c, Neural and behavioural raster from an example mouse observing aggression in the 2P set-up (left). The arrows indicate insertion of submissive BALB/c intruders into the observation chamber for interaction with an aggressive Swiss Webster (SW) mouse. Right, example neurons from the raster to the left. d, Neural activity projected onto rSLDS dimensions obtained from models fit to 2P imaging data in one example mouse. e, rSLDS time constants across mice. n = 9 mice. Statistical analysis was performed using two-tailed Mann–Whitney U-tests. Data are mean ± s.e.m. f, The line-attractor score (Methods) across mice. n = 9 mice. Data are mean ± s.e.m. g, Behaviour-triggered average of x1 and x2 dimensions, aligned to the introduction of BALB/c mice into the resident’s cage. n = 9 mice. Data are the average activity (dark line) ± s.e.m. (shading). h, Flow fields from rSLDS model fit to 2P imaging data during observation of aggression from one example mouse. The larger blue arrows next to the neural trajectory indicate the direction flow of time. The smaller arrows represent the vector field from the rSLDS model. i, Identification of neurons contributing to x1 dimension from rSLDS model (top). The neuron’s weight is shown as an absolute (abs) value. Bottom, activity heat map of five neurons contributing most strongly to the x1 dimension. Right, neural traces of the same neurons and an indication of when the system enters the line attractor. j, As in i but for the x2 dimension. k, Dynamic velocity landscape from 2P imaging data during observation of aggression from one example mouse. Blue, stable area in the landscape; red, unstable area in the landscape. The black line shows the trajectory of neuronal activity. l, The cumulative distributions of the autocorrelation half width (ACHW) of neurons contributing to the x1 (green) and x2 (red) dimensions. n = 9 mice, 45 neurons each for the x1 and x2 distributions. m, The mean autocorrelation half width (HW) across mice for neurons contributing to the x1 and x2 dimensions. n = 9 mice. Statistical analysis was performed using a two-tailed Mann–Whitney U-test; **P = 0.0078. Data are mean ± s.e.m. ****P < 0.0001, **P < 0.01.
