Fig. 6: Search path length negatively influences the directional selectivity of lever-anchored firing fields during dark trials.
a Examples of two neurons with a lever-box-anchored firing field during dark trials. Their firing activity around the lever box is shown separately for trials with short (left) and long (right) search paths. For each neuron, three plots are shown for dark trials with short and long search paths. Left: Search paths (dark gray) of the animal during dark trials. The number indicates the median length of the search path. Middle: 2D lever-box-centered firing rate map. The number indicates the peak firing rate. Right: Trial matrix of the neuron. Each row of the matrix is the firing rate as a function of the direction of the mouse from the lever-box center for a single trial. The number above the matrix refers to the trial matrix correlation. b–e Quantification of the differences in directional selectivity around the lever box between trials with short and long search paths. Only neurons with a lever-box-anchored field in the Cardinal reference frame were considered (n = 8 mice, 109 cells). b Mean vector length (MVL) of the firing rate of the neuron around the lever (n = 8 mice, one-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P = 7.8 × 10-3). c Peak rate of the directional polar histogram (one-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P = 3.9 × 10-3). d Trial matrix correlation (one-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P = 7.8 × 10-3). e Directional trial drift (one-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P = 0.15). f Distribution of Pearson correlation coefficients between the search path length and the trial drift for each mouse. Each point represents a lever-box-anchored firing field. g Distribution of correlation between the search path length and the trial drift (n = 8 mice, one-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P = 3.9 × 10-3). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.005, ns non-significant. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
