Extended Data Fig. 4: Frequency-specific locomotion-related suppression requires several days of coupled sensory–motor experience.

a, Example sensory–motor experience during anti-coupled aVR experience. Mice did not hear tones while running, but tones were played back during subsequent resting periods with inter-tone intervals drawn from the intervals that mice should have heard while running. b, Population PSTHs for the expected frequency (left) and for non-reafferent frequencies (right) during rest (black) and running (red) following anti-coupled aVR. Anti-coupled aVR experience does not lead to changes in auditory responsiveness during running or rest. Sample size: N = 4 mice, n = 97 neurons. Shaded region shows mean ± s.e. P = 0.57, two-sided Wilcoxon rank sum test. c, Example sensory–motor experience during metronome aVR experience. Tones were presented during running at a fixed rate (2 s^–1) but the tone rate was not modulated by running speed. d, Population PSTHs for the expected frequency (left) and for non-reafferent frequencies (right) during rest (black) and running (red) following metronome aVR. Metronome aVR experience does not lead to changes in auditory responsiveness during running or rest. Sample size: N = 2 mice, n = 49 neurons. Shaded region shows mean ± s.e. P = 0.57, two-sided Wilcoxon rank sum test. e, Mice were acclimated to aVR for 7 days. On the day of electrophysiology, we altered on each locomotor bout the sound produced by the treadmill to be either expected (blue) or a non-reafferent frequency (2 octaves away, red). We then analysed responses (N = 4 mice, n = 74 neurons) to each sound frequency during rest (R) and to the first five tones heard at the beginning of each bout of locomotion (L1–L5). (i) Tone-evoked responses (population PSTHs) to the reafferent (blue) and a non-reafferent sound (red) during rest. (ii) Tone-evoked responses during locomotion to the first five tones in a series of the expected reafferent frequency. (iii) Tone-evoked responses during locomotion to the first five tones heard in a series of non-reafferent tones. f, Firing rates to the reafferent (blue) and non-reafferent (red) reafferent sounds during rest (R) and during the first five tones heard during locomotion (L1–L5). Responses to the first tone heard during locomotion were significantly suppressed only if that tone matched the expected reafferent frequency (blue asterisk, P = 0.002, two-sided Wilcoxon signed rank test). Black asterisks indicate significant differences between firing rates to the reafferent and non-reafferent reafferent sounds (L1, P = 0.002; L2, P = 0.03; L3, P = 0.007, two-sided Wilcoxon rank sum test). Sample size: N = 4 mice, n = 74 neurons. Red n.s. indicates that evoked responses to the first tone heard during a bout of running are not significantly different from those evoked during rest for non-reafferent tones (P = 0.4, two-sided Wilcoxon signed rank test). g, Population PSTHs for the expected frequency (left) and for non-reafferent frequencies (right) during rest (black) and running (red). Data were collected from three mice (n = 67 neurons) after each mouse’s first experience of hearing fixed-frequency reafferent tones for 1 h, during which time mice heard 927, 3,167 and 1,069 reafferent tones at 16 kHz, 2 kHz and 16 kHz, respectively. This experience was insufficient to shift the locomotion-related suppression towards the reafferent frequency. Shaded region shows mean ± s.e. P = 0.47, two-sided Wilcoxon rank sum test.