Data from: Response outcome gates the effect of spontaneous cortical state fluctuations on perceptual decisions

Sensory responses of cortical neurons are more discriminable when evoked
on a baseline of desynchronized spontaneous activity, but cortical
desynchronization has not generally been associated with more accurate
perceptual decisions. Here we show that mice perform more accurate
auditory judgements when activity in the auditory cortex is elevated and
desynchronized before stimulus onset, but only if the previous trial was
an error, and that this relationship is occluded if previous outcome is
ignored. We confirmed that the outcome-dependent effect of brain state on
performance is neither due to idiosyncratic associations between the slow
components of either signal, nor to the existence of specific cortical
states evident only after errors. Instead, errors appear to gate the
effect of cortical state fluctuations on discrimination accuracy. Neither
facial movements nor pupil size during the baseline were associated with
accuracy, but they were predictive of measures of responsivity, such as
the probability of not responding to the stimulus or of responding
prematurely. These results suggest that the functional role of cortical
state on behavior is dynamic and constantly regulated by performance
monitoring systems. Data/analyses: Mice perform an auditory frequency
discrimination task and in the main analyses we predict the outcome of the
current or previous trial as a function of different behavioral variables
(described in the README file). Different outcomes are predicted depending
on the specific analyses. While animals perform the task, we record
neuronal activity from the auditory cortex using silicon probes, as well
as videos to extract facial movements and pupil size. Electrophysiological
data was used to estimate the overall rate and synchrony of the neuronal
population before stimulus presentation.