# Readout and control of spatiotemporal neuronal codes for behavior

> **NIH NIH U19** · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · 2022 · $3,204,996

## Abstract

Project Summary
To survive, organisms must both accurately represent stimuli in the outside world, and use that representation
to generate beneficial behavioral actions. Historically, these two processes – the mapping from stimuli to
neural responses, and the mapping from neural activity to behavior – have largely been treated separately. Of
the two, the former has received the most attention. Often referred to as the “neural coding problem,” its goal is
to determine which features of neural activity carry information about external stimuli. This approach has led to
many empirical and theoretical proposals about the spatial and temporal features of neural population
activity, or “neural codes,” that represent sensory information. However, there is still no consensus about
the neural code for most sensory stimuli in most areas of the nervous system. The lack of consensus
arises in part because, while it is established that certain features of neural population responses carry
information about specific stimuli, it is unclear whether the brain uses (“reads”) the information in these
features to form sensory perceptions. We have developed a theoretical framework, based on the intersection
of coding and readout, to approach this problem. Experimentally informing this framework requires
manipulating patterns of neuronal activity based on, and at the same spatiotemporal scale as, their
natural firing patterns during sensory perception. This work must be done in behaving animals because it
is essential to know which neural codes guide behavioral decisions. In the first phase of this project (funded
by the BRAIN Initiative), we developed the technology necessary for realizing this goal. In the present
proposal, we will extend our patterned neuronal stimulation technology and apply it to answer long-standing
questions about neural coding and readout in the visual, olfactory, and auditory systems. We will pioneer
the capacity to determine which neurons within a network are encoding behaviorally relevant information,
and also to determine the extent to which temporal patterns of those neurons’ activity are being used to
guide behavior. Finally, we will study these neural coding principles across changes in behavioral state and
during learning to determine how internal context and past experience shape coding and readout. The
contributions of the proposed work will be three-fold. First, we will provide the neuroscience community with the
tools needed to test theories of how neural populations encode and decode information throughout the brain.
Second, we will reveal fundamental principles of spatiotemporal neural coding and readout in the visual,
olfactory, and auditory systems of behaving animals. And third, our unifying theoretical framework for
cracking neural codes will allow the broader neuroscience community to resolve ongoing debates
regarding neural coding that have been previously stalemated by considering only half of the coding/readout
problem.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10456138
- **Project number:** 5U19NS107464-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Behtash Babadi
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $3,204,996
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-15 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10456138

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10456138, Readout and control of spatiotemporal neuronal codes for behavior (5U19NS107464-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10456138. Licensed CC0.

---

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