Selective filtering of relevant sensory signals in parietal cortex

Animals must flexibly adjust their behavior to respond appropriately in changing behavioral situations, in order to survive and thrive. The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has been implicated in flexible decision-making, as it encodes sensory stimuli depending on their behavioral relevance [1] and is required to adapt to changes in stimulus-response contingencies in behavioral tasks [2]. Here, we show that while mice performed an auditory decision-making task, the temporal organization of neural activity differed across excitatory and inhibitory interneuron subtypes, with pyramidal neurons sparsely encoding task-related information. Sensory responses of all cell types were modulated according to behavioral relevance in the task, and signatures of this modulation were evident even before the presentation of sensory stimuli. Population activity patterns preceding stimulus presentation predicted the strength of sensory responses and even the mouse's behavioral accuracy in the task. A network model revealed that randomly organized inhibitory connectivity could replicate the selective filtering of sensory responses, but that context-dependent inputs to the network must be targeted to neurons responding to behaviorally relevant cues, and avoid those responding to irrelevant cues. Our results reveal a selective filtering mechanism in cortical circuits underlying flexible decision-making.