Distinct context- and content-dependent population codes in superior colliculus during sensation and action

Significance Sensorimotor transformation is a process humans perform countless times a day, for example, when we look at or reach for objects of interest. Many brain areas register a sensory stimulus and convert the stimulus-related information into an appropriate motor command. Deficits in sensory and/or motor processes are implicated in neurological dysfunctions like attention deficit disorders. We investigated how the context of behavioral tasks impacts patterns of population activity during sensation and action. Dimensionality reduction techniques reveal that context can impact both the sensory- and movement-related transient activity patterns in the population of superior colliculus neurons. This insight is not readily identifiable in single-unit recordings and thus motivates the use of population-level analysis to investigate neural function.