Encoding and Routing of Task-Relevant Information in Mouse PPC During Continuous Visuomotor Control

Animals need to select what features to act on from a deluge of incoming sensory input. However, it is unclear how the computations underlying this process are distributed across the brain. In my thesis, I focused on how information selection is performed at the level of association areas during learned behaviors and how this information is propagated forward to motor areas in mice performing a novel visuomotor control task. The general introduction provides a brief background of one of the key brain regions, Posterior Parietal Cortex and its role in visuomotor control; highlights potential gaps in the space of visuomotor paradigms used to study this region; surveys the different approaches to probe information flow between regions and finally draws up different candidate models for information routing based on existing studies. In chapter 2, I present findings on the following fronts; first, that mice learn to perform a continuous visuomotor control task with a learned behaviorally-relevant component; second, that association and motor areas play a distinct role in performing this task; third, that, decision areas strongly enrich behaviorally-relevant information and route their entire representation to motor areas. In chapter 3, I synthesize the findings in the context of the broader literature and outline potential future directions.