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The geometry of cortical representations of touch in rodents | bioRxiv

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Neural responses are often highly heterogeneous non-linear functions of multiple task variables, a signature of a high-dimensional geometry of the neural representations. We studied the representational geometry in the somatosensory cortex of mice trained to report the curvature of objects using their whiskers. High-speed videos of the whisker movements revealed that the task can be solved by linearly integrating multiple whisker contacts over time. However, the neural activity in somatosensory cortex reflects a process of non-linear integration of spatio-temporal features of the sensory inputs. Although the responses at first appear disorganized, we could identify an interesting structure in the representational geometry: different whisker contacts are disentangled variables represented in approximately, but not fully, orthogonal subspaces of the neural activity space. The observed geometry allows linear readouts to perform a broad class of tasks of different complexities without compromising the ability to generalize to novel situations. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

The geometry of cortical representations of touch in rodents | bioRxiv Skip to main content New Results The geometry of cortical representations of touch in rodents View ORCID Profile Ramon Nogueira , View ORCID Profile Chris C. Rodgers , View ORCID Profile Randy M. Bruno , View ORCID Profile Stefano Fusi doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.11.430704 Ramon Nogueira 1 Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Columbia University , New York, NY 10027 2 Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University , New York, NY 10027 3 Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University , New York, NY 10

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