Neural manifold under plasticity in a goal driven learning behaviour.

Neural activity is often low dimensional and dominated by only a few prominent neural covariation patterns. It has been hypothesised that these covariation patterns could form the building blocks used for fast and flexible motor control. Supporting this idea, recent experiments have shown that monke...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Barbara Feulner, Claudia Clopath
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021-02-01
Series:PLoS Computational Biology
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008621
Description
Summary:Neural activity is often low dimensional and dominated by only a few prominent neural covariation patterns. It has been hypothesised that these covariation patterns could form the building blocks used for fast and flexible motor control. Supporting this idea, recent experiments have shown that monkeys can learn to adapt their neural activity in motor cortex on a timescale of minutes, given that the change lies within the original low-dimensional subspace, also called neural manifold. However, the neural mechanism underlying this within-manifold adaptation remains unknown. Here, we show in a computational model that modification of recurrent weights, driven by a learned feedback signal, can account for the observed behavioural difference between within- and outside-manifold learning. Our findings give a new perspective, showing that recurrent weight changes do not necessarily lead to change in the neural manifold. On the contrary, successful learning is naturally constrained to a common subspace.
ISSN:1553-734X
1553-7358