Visuomotor interactions in the mouse forebrain mediated by extrastriate cortico-cortical pathways.

Introduction: The mammalian visual system can be broadly divided into two functional processing pathways: a dorsal stream supporting visually and spatially guided actions, and a ventral stream enabling object recognition. In rodents, the majority of visual signaling in the dorsal stream is transmitted to frontal motor cortices via extrastriate visual areas surrounding V1, but exactly where and to what extent V1 feeds into motor-projecting visual regions is not well known.

Methods: We employed a dual labeling strategy in male and female mice in which efferent projections from V1 were labeled anterogradely, and motor-projecting neurons in higher visual areas were labeled with retrogradely traveling adeno-associated virus (rAAV-retro) injected in M2.

Action representation in the mouse parieto-frontal network.

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and frontal motor areas comprise a cortical network supporting goal-directed behaviour, with functions including sensorimotor transformations and decision making. In primates, this network links performed and observed actions via mirror neurons, which fire both when individuals perform an action and when they observe the same action performed by a conspecific. Mirror neurons are believed to be important for social learning, but it is not known whether mirror-like neurons occur in similar networks in other social species, such as rodents, or if they can be measured in such models using paradigms where observers passively view a demonstrator.

Organization of Posterior Parietal-Frontal Connections in the Rat.

Recent investigations of the rat posterior parietal cortex (PPC) suggest that this region plays a central role in action control together with the frontal cortical areas. Posterior parietal-frontal cortical connections have been described in rats, but little is known about whether these connections are topographically organized as in the primate. Here, we injected retrograde and anterograde tracers into subdivisions of PPC as well as the frontal midline and orbital cortical areas to explore possible topographies within their connections.

Architecture and organization of mouse posterior parietal cortex relative to extrastriate areas.

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is a multifaceted region of cortex, contributing to several cognitive processes, including sensorimotor integration and spatial navigation. Although recent years have seen a considerable rise in the use of rodents, particularly mice, to investigate PPC and related networks, a coherent anatomical definition of PPC in the mouse is still lacking. To address this, we delineated the mouse PPC, using cyto- and chemoarchitectural markers from Nissl-, parvalbumin-and muscarinic acetylcholine receptor M2-staining.