Spatially heterogeneous inhibition projects sequential activity onto unique neural subspaces

Abstract

Neural activity in the brain traces sequential trajectories on low dimensional subspaces. For flexible behavior, these neural subspaces must be manipulated and reoriented within short timescales of tens of milliseconds. Using mathematical analysis and simulation of a recurrently connected neural circuit for sequence generation, we report that incorporating a subtype of interneurons that provides spatially heterogeneous inhibition enables the projection of sequential activity onto task- or context-specific neural subspaces. Depending on the sparsity of inhibitory projections, neural subspaces could be arbitrarily rotated, without altering the key aspects of sequence generation. Thus, we propose a circuit motif by which inhibitory interneurons can enable flexible switching between neural subspaces on a fast timescale of milliseconds, controlled by top down signals.