DOI: 10.5061/dryad.02v6wwq3b
title: Prefrontal deep projection neurons enable cognitive flexibility via persistent feedback monitoring

description: Attentional set-shifting is a cognitive task that requires a subject to
 flexibly shift attention between different sensory features of a stimulus,
 based on continuous trial-and-error. This data set comprises in-vivo
 2-photon video recordings of fluorescent calcium signals made in the
 prefrontal (prelimbic + infralimbic) cortex of mice performing a serial
 extradimensional set-shifting task.     
description: The task structure is as follows. On each trial, the animal is
 presented with a 2.5-second compound stimulus that consists of one of two
 possible odors (almond oil or sesame oil) and one of two possible whisker
 vibration patterns (a 255Hz sinusoidal vibration or a string of
 Poisson-distributed clicks averaging 255Hz). Whisker cues are presented
 simultaneously to both sets of whiskers via a low-frequency
 (sub-hearing-threshold) bass speaker coupled to a funnel that directs a
 75db sound wave at the whiskers, vibrating them. At the end of the
 2.5-second stimulus presentation window, the water-restricted animal may
 lick one of two water spouts (left or right) for a water reward. In a
 given block of trials, what determines the location of the water reward is
 either the identity of the whisker stimulus or the identity of the odor
 stimulus. The animal must learn, within a trial block, which is the
 correct sensory modality to attend to to locate the reward. After the
 conclusion of the 2.5-second stimulus presentation, the animal has a
 1.5-second window in which a lick will cause the trial to end in a reward
 being dispensed or witheld. Trials are separated by an 8-10-second
 inter-trial interval, and preceded by a 0.5-second auditory trial-start
 cue. The task rule (whether to attend to the whisker or odor cue to locate
 the reward) automatically changes each time the animal reaches a
 criterion-level performance of 80% correct trials within a 30-trial moving
 window. The data consist of recordings from 21 animals,
 expressing GCaMP6f in one of three cell types: pan-neuronal expression,
 driven by the hSyn promotor, expression in layer-V neurons projecting to
 the mediodorsal thalamus, and expression in layer II-V neurons projecting
 to the ventromedial striatum. The data consist of three data
 objects. A 'cellType' structure,
 which denotes the types of cells expressing GCaMP in each recording (PFC
 for the pan-neuronal group, PMD for the prefrontal-mediodorsal-thalamus
 group, and PVS for the prefrontal-ventral-striatum group).
 A 'features' structure, which contains labels for six
 variables that fully describe the task conditions for each trial:
 whiskerStim, which contains 0 or 1 to indicate which
 of the two whisker stimuli is presented on each trial. During trial blocks
 in which the "attend-whisker" rule is in effect, 0 indicates
 that the reward is located on the left, and 1 indicates the reward is
 located on the right. odorStim, which contains 0 or 1
 for each trial, following the same logic as the whiskerStim
 values. choiceLR, which contains 0 or 1 for each
 trial to indicate whether the animal chose the left or right lick
 spout. reward, which indicates whether the animal
 correctly located (and received) a reward (1 for correct choice and
 reward, 0 for incorrect choice, no reward)
 attendWhiskerOdor, which indicates which of the two sensory
 modality rules is in effect for a given trial block (0 for attend-odor
 rule, 1 for attend-whisker rule) sessionNum. Each set
 of neurons was followed for multiple days to maximize the trial yield for
 each neuron, and the sessionNum variable indicates which of the
 consiecutively recorded sessions a given trial belongs to.
 A 'spikeHistogram' structure,
 which contains deconvolved GCaMP6f df/f signal for each trial. The
 dimensions of this data for each animal are neuron x trial x timepoint.
 Recordings were made at a framerate of 2.89Hz, and each of the 54
 timepoints in a trial correspond with a single camera frame. The trials
 are aligned to the last frame of the 2.5s stimulus presentation epoch. The
 recordings were motion-corrected using NoRMCorre, cells were located using
 the CNMF-E package, and cells were co-registered across sessions using
 CellReg.