Population analyses reveal heterogenous encoding in the medial prefrontal cortex during naturalistic foraging

Foraging in the wild requires coordinated switching of critical functions, including goal-oriented navigation and context-appropriate action selection. Nevertheless, few studies have examined how different functions are represented in the brain during naturalistic foraging. To address this question, we recorded multiple single-unit activities from the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of rats seeking a sucrose reward in the presence of an unpredictable attack posed by a robotic predator (Lobsterbot). Simultaneously recorded ensemble activities from neurons were analyzed in reference to various behavioral indices as the animal moved freely across the foraging area (F) between the nest (N) and the goal (E) area. An artificial neural network, trained with simultaneously recorded neural activity, estimated the rat’s current distance from the Lobsterbot. The accuracy of distance estimation was the highest in the middle F-zone in which the dominant behavior was active navigation. The spatial en..., , # Data from: Population analyses reveal heterogenous encoding in the medial prefrontal cortex during naturalistic foraging

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v9s4mw78c](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v9s4mw78c)

# File Structure

1. **raw.zip**: Raw session data
2. **FineDistanceDataset.zip**: Data for training and evaluating the ANN regressor for distance decoding and PCA analysis
3. **EventClassificationData_4C.zip**: Data for training and evaluating the Naive Bayesian classifier
4. **BehaviorData.zip**: Raw behavior data

## raw

* Each folder represents one experimental session.
* The recorded region is indicated in the session name (PL or IL).
* `*.csv`: Head tracking data. Columns represent frame, row, column, and head angle.
* `FPS.txt`: Frame rate (FPS) of the recorded video.
* `/recording`: Contains MATLAB data files for each recorded and sorted unit.
* `SU` (matrix) : raw unit data
* Col1: Fired time\
Col2: Tetrode ID\
Col3: Cell ID\
Col4–Col120: waveform
*...,