Invariant activity sequences across the mouse brain

Abstract

Given the variety and plasticity of their circuits, different brain regions could potentially produce profoundly diverse patterns of population activity. Alternatively, the population activity could exhibit canonical patterns that are similar across the brain and stable over time. Here we show that a pattern observed in the cerebral cortex, where neurons fire in 10-100 ms sequences, is stable across weeks and ubiquitous across the brain. In mouse visual cortex, neurons respond to visual stimuli with fixed latency, forming a sequence. Similar sequences appeared during spontaneous activity: each neuron was coupled to the population with a characteristic strength and delay, which remained stable for weeks. Brainwide recordings revealed such sequences in every brain region. These results reveal a stable scaffold for neural activity across the brain.