# Determining which neurons contribute to a particular behaviorally distinguishable percept Project

> **NIH NIH U19** · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · 2020 · $688,014

## Abstract

Within sensory structures, even the simplest stimulus engages thousands of neurons that have widely varying
stimulus selectivity and are spatially distributed in sensory brain maps. This organization raises the essential
question of the rules governing the integration of the activity of such a large dispersed population of neurons
to produce uniform percepts and reliable behaviors. Do behavioral responses to a sensory stimulus rely on a
weighted sum of all active neurons that represent it, or a weighted sum of particular subpopulations of
neurons (for example, defined by genetic identity, stimulus selectivity, location, or projection targets)?
Moreover, how are neurons in different regions of an active population weighted? While these issues have
been computationally investigated using a variety of decoding approaches, the causal link between population
activity and behavior has been lacking. This project will provide such links by using patterned stimulation of
targeted and characterized neuronal populations with in vivo holographic stimulation to bias and drive
behavioral responses.
 The proposed experiments will determine how the spatial relationships between neurons relate to their
relative impact on behavior, and assess how this spatial weighting is affected by changes in stimulus
intensity, signal-to-noise ratio, and stimulus complexity. Comparisons between sensory systems will reveal
which rules are general, and which are related to particular sensory demands. Because sensory neurons are
broadly tuned, every stimulus activates neurons with different stimulus preferences. The experiments will test
whether neurons that share a particular stimulus preference have cooperative effects and how this weighting
is affected by variation in signal-to-noise ratio. Finally, because neurons in each brain area have different
identities that reflect their different functional contributions, the project will test if behavioral roles vary between
neurons across cortical layers, genetic identities, or projection targets. Collectively, these experiments will
provide new and previously unattainable information about the encoding and readout of stimuli as well as how
those results generalize to more natural sensory stimuli.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9983224
- **Project number:** 5U19NS107464-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
- **Principal Investigator:** PATRICK O KANOLD
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $688,014
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-15 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9983224

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9983224, Determining which neurons contribute to a particular behaviorally distinguishable percept Project (5U19NS107464-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9983224. Licensed CC0.

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