Perceptual Decision-Making During Whisker-Guided Navigation Causally Depends on a Single Cortical Barrel Column

Perceptually driven behavioral choices ae thought to develop gradually from sensation to perception in somatosensory cortex to guide decision-making in higher order cortical areas. Primary somatosensory cortex wS1 of rodents related to their mystacial whiskers has been a model system to study this information flow. However, the role of wS1 in this process is often debated based on controversial results of loss-of-function behavioral experiments that often require prolonged training and movement restraints. Here, to elucidate the role of wS1 in decision-making, we develop an ethological whisker-guided virtual reality (VR) paradigm that closely mimics natural navigation in underground burrows. Untrained mice are navigating at high speed the left and right turns by sensing VR walls with just a pair of their C2 whiskers. We inactivate less than 200 neurons in layer 4 of C2 barrel that results in loss of ability to produce turns contralateral to the lesion. Using probabilistic model of collision avoidance in the presence of noise and uncertainties we hypothesize that wS1 is involved in a feedback control loop that requires continuous updates and predictions to infer the optimal path for collision avoidance.