Convergence of Information from Separate Brain Areas to Orchestrate Orienting Movements

To interact with our environment, we identify, locate and move towards objects of interest. This recruits multiple brain areas, handling separate aspects.

Indeed, perception alone engages several cortical and subcortical areas, processing specific features or sensory modalities.

How this information is then merged to create a unified percept is a fundamental question, known as the binding problem. Here, we address this question by studying the superior colliculus, a midbrain area essential for orienting.

Inside this structure, a neuronal subpopulation forms segregated patches, which elicit precise head rotations, and receive sensory-, motor- and attentional-related inputs.

These anatomical sites seem well poised to bring together information from similar locations or objects, to induce orienting towards them.

To test this hypothesis, I will probe how coherent these converging inputs are, in terms of feature tuning and receptive field coordinates.

To investigate if inputs convey filtered information, I will assess the functional diversity of afferent neurons in each brain area.

I will then examine whether this content varies across recipient patches, to determine whether stimuli at distinctive positions trigger head rotations.

To label and record presynaptic partners, I will employ monosynaptically restricted trans-synaptic viruses, combined with two photon calcium imaging in awake mice. This project will reveal how animals create a representation of space in order to execute target-oriented movements.

Because the superior colliculus is an ancient and conserved structure, this is potentially evolution’s first attempt to bind coherent processes to guide movement, animal’s main concern.