Specific expansion of motor cortical projections in a singing mouse

Data and analysis for Isko et al., 2026. Behavioral data and analysis as well as MAPseq data and analysis included.
Elucidating how modifications in neural circuit architecture drive behavioral innovation remains a key challenge in neuroscience and evolutionary biology. In mammals, the neocortex is posited to play a critical role in facilitating rapid behavioral innovations, such as language. Although changes in long-range connectivity have been proposed to underlie such innovations, these hypotheses largely remain untested quantitatively, partly due to the lack of high-throughput neuronal projection data at single-neuron resolution across species. To address this, we studied the Alston’s singing mouse (Scotinomys teguina), which exhibits a striking vocal behavior absent in the laboratory mouse (Mus musculus), to quantitatively determine species-specific changes in motor cortical projections throughout the brain. We used bulk tracing, serial two-photon tomography, and high-throughput DN..., , # Data from: Specific expansion of motor cortical projections in a singing mouse

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.8kprr4z2p](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8kprr4z2p)

## Description of the data and file structure

For MAPseq analysis, a total of 12 animals were processed, 5 lab mice and 7 singing mice.

`metadata.csv` contains information on the mouse identity, species, and batch.

* Species short hands are used, `MMus` for *Mus musculus* and `STeg` for *Scotinomys teguina*
* Data was generated in 2 independent batches (`M194` and `M220`)

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For every mouse, 3 data files are supplied. In all cases, csvs encode matrices where each row is a unique barcode (i.e. neuron) and columns are the target regions collected.

* `[Mouse]_[dataset]_count.csv`
* Contains raw count data
* `[Mouse]_[dataset]_bin.csv`
* Contains binarized data for >=4 raw counts
* `[Mouse]_[dataset]_countN.csv`
* Contains count data normalized to RNA spike-ins

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## Code availability
Code used to generate fig..., ,