# Cortical feedback modulation of sensory processing during selective detection

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE · 2022 · $321,731

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
A hallmark of mental health is the ability to flexibly interact with our surroundings accord to situational
context and internal goals. A long-standing theory of cortical physiology is that context-dependent neural
processing is mediated by cortical feedback pathways. According to this theory, internal states related to
context or goal-direction are encoded in fronto-parietal cortices. These signals propagate throughout cortex
along cortical feedback pathways, whereby they set the initial conditions that influence the representation
and routing of sensory responses. Mechanistic descriptions of cortical feedback function, however, are
limited due to the difficulty of studying specific cortical pathways in behaving subjects. Innovations in this
proposal come from combining a well-defined model system, quantitative behavior, and advanced genetic
and physiological tools. We study a motor-to-sensory cortical feedback pathway in the mouse whisker
system. Our experiments are designed to test hypotheses for how motor cortex feedback informs sensory
cortex about processing incoming sensory stimuli. We implement a quantitative sensory detection task, in
which mice learn to respond to target stimuli and ignore distractor stimuli. Thus, our proposal will reveal
cortical feedback contributions to both target stimulus detection and non-target stimulus (‘noise’)
suppression. We specifically hypothesize that motor-to-sensory cortical feedback improves task
performance by reducing non-target responses through sensory cortex noise suppression. We study these
processes at the resolution of behavior, cortical feedback population activity and sensory cortex single unit
sensory processing. We use a host of cutting-edge physiological tools including pathway-specific cortical
feedback optogenetic suppression, Ca2+ imaging of axons and terminals and multielectrode recordings of
identified neuronal cell-types. Together, these studies will provide mechanistic understandings of cortical
feedback signaling during goal-directed behavior. Additionally, these studies will generate new hypotheses
for how disturbances of cortical feedback may contribute to dysfunctions of context-dependent processing in
neuropsychiatric disease.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10438700
- **Project number:** 5R01NS107599-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
- **Principal Investigator:** Edward W Zagha
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $321,731
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-07-01 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10438700

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10438700, Cortical feedback modulation of sensory processing during selective detection (5R01NS107599-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10438700. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*