Will Long

Nov 20, 2023 | janelia.org | Lin Zhong |Renee Tung |Will Long |Marius Pachitariu

Mice are always in motion. Even if there’s no external motivation for their actions—like a cat lurking a few feet away—mice are constantly sweeping their whiskers back and forth, sniffing around their environment and grooming themselves. These spontaneous actions light up neurons across many different regions of the brain, providing a neural representation of what the animal is doing moment-by-moment across the brain. But how the brain uses these persistent, widespread signals remains a mystery.