Extended Data Fig. 10: Schematic summary of homeostasis in the representational map and the underlying single-neuron mechanisms.

a. Schematics in ablation of sound responsive neurons. After microablation of sound responsive neurons, the representational map undergoes temporal disturbance and recovery in 3–5 subsequent days. Here the representational map is depicted as the colored dots corresponding to different sound identities in representational space from population activities (top row). Longer distance between dots in this space indicates lower correlation that is, dissimilar relationship of population activities between the sounds. Response reliability across trials in individual neurons is reduced on the day after ablation shown as the example tuning curve with a shaded gray band (the 2^nd row). The broader band indicates a larger variability in responses across trials. The width of tuning curve in the individual neurons is reduced on the day after ablation and remains narrowed over several days (the 3^rd row). The narrowing of the width is more pronounced in baseline responsive neurons (the 3^rd row, light blue curve). The average best response amplitude for the baseline responsive neurons keeps reduced after microablation (the 3^rd row, light blue curve), while the best amplitude for the newly responsive neurons, which are unresponsive on the day before ablation but become responsive on any other day, increased a few days after microablation (the 3^rd row, purple curve). The rate of response turnover, where some responsive neurons lose their responsiveness and other unresponsive neurons gain their responsiveness, is accelerated after microablation. The more neurons in the baseline responsive network (rounded squares in the 4^th row, light blue dotted circle) lose their responsiveness, the more neurons outside the baseline network gain responsiveness. The fraction of neuron pairs with high signal correlation, that is, highly similar tunings increase later days after microablation (the number of red edges in the population inside the rounded squares in the 4^th row). The increase of fraction is specifically driven by the newly responsive neurons, which are located outside of the baseline responsive network. Similarity in tuning between the microablated neurons and the spared neurons increased later days after microablation, especially between the microablated neurons and the newly responsive neurons (bottom, shown as the thickness of red edges between these neurons). b. Same as a, but in ablation of inhibitory neurons. Different from microablation of sound responsive neurons, microablation of inhibitory neurons induces long-lasting disturbance of the representational map, which is depicted as the more widely distributed color dots in representational space (top row). The single-neuron response reliability across trials maintains a lower level than the baseline level (the 2^nd row) with the broader shaded gray band. Since the reduction of similarity matrix is mostly due to the destabilization of response across trials, the tuning width (the 3^rd row), best response amplitude (the 3^rd row) and tuning similarity between neurons (rounded squares in the 4^th row) do not change after microablation. Interestingly, the tuning similarity between the microablated neurons (bottom, dotted circle) and the newly responsive neurons increases also for inhibitory neuron ablation.