DOI: 10.5061/dryad.7pvmcvf2z
title: Differential stability of task variable representations in retrosplenial cortex

description: Cortical neurons store information across different timescales, from
 seconds to years. Although information stability is variable across
 regions, it can vary within a region as well. Association areas are known
 to multiplex behaviorally relevant variables, but the stability of their
 representations is not well understood. Here, we longitudinally recorded
 the activity of neuronal populations in the mouse retrosplenial cortex
 (RSC) during the performance of a context-choice association task. We
 found that the activity of neurons exhibits different levels of stability
 across days. Using linear classifiers, we quantified the stability of
 three task-relevant variables. We find that RSC representations of context
 and trial outcome display higher stability than motor choice, both at the
 single cell and population levels. Together, our findings show an
 important characteristic of association areas, where diverse streams of
 information are stored with varying levels of stability, which may balance
 representational reliability and flexibility according to behavioral
 demands.
description: This README.txt file was generated on 2024-08-10 by Luis M. Franco GENERAL
 INFORMATION 1. Title of Dataset: Differential Stability of Task Variable
 Representations in Retrosplenial Cortex 2. Author Information A. Principal
 Investigator Contact Information Name: Michael J. Goard Institution:
 University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) Address: 6131 Biological
 Science Building II, University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), Santa
 Barbara, CA 93106-5060 Email:
 [michael.goard@lifesci.ucsb.edu](mailto:michael.goard@lifesci.ucsb.edu) B.
 Associate or Co-investigator Contact Information Name: Luis M. Franco
 Institution: University of Oregon (UO) Address: Institute of Neuroscience,
 University of Oregon (UO), 1254 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
 97403-1254 Email: [luisfran@uoregon.edu](mailto:luisfran@uoregon.edu) 3.
 Date of data collection: stabilityData.mat ---&gt; 2018-09-11 to
 2019-06-14 exampleExperiment [folder] ---&gt; 2018-09-11 to 2018-09-15 4.
 Geographic location of data collection: Santa Barbara, CA, USA 5.
 Information about funding sources that supported the collection of the
 data: This work was supported by the Harvey Karp Discovery Award (L.M.F.)
 and UC MEXUS-CONACYT Postdoctoral Fellowship (L.M.F.), NIH R01 NS121919
 (M.J.G.), NSF 1707287 (M.J.G.), the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation (M.J.G.),
 and the Whitehall Foundation (M.J.G.). SHARING/ACCESS INFORMATION 1.
 Licenses/restrictions placed on the data: If you find this dataset useful,
 please thank the authors by citing their work: Franco and Goard, 2024. 2.
 Links to publications that cite or use the data:
 [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51227-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51227-7) 3. Links to other publicly accessible locations of the data: No other publicly accessible locations. 4. Links/relationships to ancillary data sets: Not available. 5. Was data derived from another source? No. 6. Recommended citation for this dataset: Franco and Goard, 2024. DATA & FILE OVERVIEW 1. File List: stabilityData.mat 2. Relationship between files, if important: Dataset of neuronal activity and task variable decoding in longitudinal experiments. 3. Additional related data collected that was not included in the current data package: No additional data. 4. Are there multiple versions of the dataset? A partially overlapping dataset from single day experiments (not longitudinal) was previosuly published by us here: [https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.25349/D99W4T](https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.25349/D99W4T) METHODOLOGICAL INFORMATION 1. Description of methods used for collection/generation of data: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51227-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51227-7) 2. Methods for processing the data: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51227-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51227-7) 3. Instrument- or software-specific information needed to interpret the data: Data are saved as a .mat file that can be read in Matlab. 4. Standards and calibration information, if appropriate: Not available. 5. Environmental/experimental conditions: For a description of experimental methodology: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51227-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51227-7) 6. Describe any quality-assurance procedures performed on the data: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51227-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51227-7) 7. People involved with sample collection, processing, analysis and/or submission: Luis M. Franco and Michael J. Goard DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: stabilityData.mat This is a .mat file containing the following matrices: cellPreference: [4701×5×4 double] ---&gt; preference of cells for each task variable 1\. 4701 cells 2\. Day of experiment 3\. Task variable: 1. Context (1 or 2), 2. Motor (left or right), 3. Post-decision outcome (correct or incorrect), 4. Post-trial outcome (correct or incorrect) cellsPerSession: [18×1 double] ---&gt; number of cells in each of the 18 experimental 5-day sessions cellsWithEnoughPerformance: [4701×5 double] ---&gt; logical indices for cells from experiments where mice had a behavioral performance above chance 1\. 4701 cells 2\. Day of experiment cellsWithEnoughTrials: [4701×5 double] ---&gt; logical indices for cells with 2 or more trials of each trial type 1\. 4701 cells 2\. Day of experiment cellsWithSignificantDecoding: [4701×5×4 double] ---&gt; logical indices for cells with significan decoding of each task variable 1\. 4701 cells 2\. Day of experiment 3\. Task variable: 1. Context, 2. Motor, 3. Post-decision outcome, 4. Post-trial outcome goodROIs: [4701×4 double] ---&gt; logical indices for cells with stable ROIs across sessions 1\. 4701 cells 2\. Day of experiment to which the ROI in day 1 is compared to. 1. Day 2, 2. Day 3, 3. Day 4, 4. Day 5 neuronalActivity: [4701×90×69×4x5 double] ---&gt; calcium activity in individual neurons (DFF) 1\. 4701 cells 2\. 90 time bins (acquired at 10 Hz) 3\. Trials (padded with NaNs for missing data) 4\. Trial type: 1. Left-Yellow, 2. Left-Blue, 3. Right-Yellow, 4. Right-Blue 5\. Day of experiment neuronalDecoding: [4701×90×100×5x3 double] ---&gt; task variable decoding in individual neurons (measured as the performance of support vector machine classifiers trained with the activity of individual neurons) 1\. 4701 cells 2\. 90 time bins (acquired at 10 Hz) 3\. 100 iterations Day of experiment 4\. Day of experiment 5.Task variable: 1. Context, 2. Motor, 3. Outcome populationDecoding: [90×100×5x5x4 double] ---&gt; population decoding of task variables (measured as the performance of support vector machine classifiers trained with the activity of populations of neurons) 1\. 90 time bins (acquired at 10 Hz) 2\. 100 iterations 3\. Reference day when classifiers are trained 4\. Day when classifiers are tested 5\. Task variable: 1. Context, 2. Motor, 3. Post-decision outcome, 4. Post-trial outcome reliableCells: [4701×5 double] ---&gt; logical indices for cells with reliable responses 1\. 4701 cells 2\. Day of experiment significantActivityDifference: [4701×5×4 double] ---&gt; logical indices for cells with significant activity difference in each task variable 1\. 4701 cells 2\. Day of experiment 3\. Task variable: 1. Context, 2. Motor, 3. Post-decision outcome, 4. Post-trial outcome DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: exampleExperiment [folder] This folder contains 10 different .mat files corresponding to 5 consecutive imaging sessions (2 experimental blocks per day) These imaging sessions were performed on the same region of the retrosplenial cortex in mouse 'sLMF009' Each .mat file contains a structure array called 'mouseData' with fields: averageProjection: [750×750 double] ---&gt; average projection of the imaging field (750 x 750 pixels; 425 × 425 μm) activityMap: [750×750 double] ---&gt; kurtosis map of the imaging field (750 x 750 pixels; 425 × 425 μm) cellROIs: {317×1 cell} ---&gt; cell array with the pixel indices for each of the 317 ROIs indentified in this experiment. The data in this example experiment can be used to test our custom code for autoamted detection of ROIs across multiple imaging sessions available here: [https://github.com/ucsb-goard-lab/defineCellROIs?tab=readme-ov-file](https://github.com/ucsb-goard-lab/defineCellROIs?tab=readme-ov-file)