Single unit and LFP recordings of medial prefrontal cortex and ventral and medial striatum of rats alternating between visual and spatial discrimination tasks in a T-maze

Action potentials and local field potentials (LFPs) were simultaneously recorded from medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), ventral striatum (vSTR) and dorsomedial striatum (dmSTR) of six Long-Evans rats during sleep and behavior. The rats had been trained to flexibly switch between two rules on the same T-maze within the same session. First in the visual discrimination task, one cue indicated the rewarded arm. Then in the spatial discrimination task, reward was provided on only one (right or left) arm, irrespective of the visual cue displays. Finally, the rat performed visual cue task again. Sleep sessions were recorded prior and after the behavior session. Results from the experiments are described in: V.J. Oberto, C.J. Boucly, HY Gao, R Todorova, M.B. Zugaro, S.I. Wiener. Distributed cell asssemblies spanning prefrontal cortex and striatum. Current Biology (2021). The data set includes 16 sessions, each consisting of pre-task sleep, task, and post-task sleep. Electrophysiological signals (LFPs and unit activity) were recorded using fifteen independently movable tetrodes. Data include sorted spikes (times, clusters, features, and full waveforms), LFPs (at 1250 Hz), positions of the rat (coordinates of head-mounted LEDs as detected by the video system), and experiment descriptions. They are provided in the standard, open format of NeuroSuite (L. Hazan, http://neurosuite.sourceforge.net, see Hazan et al., 2006). Data analyses described in the above articles used our free (GPL-licensed) Freely Moving Animal Toolbox (FMAToolbox, M. Zugaro, http://fmatoolbox.sourceforge.net) and custom scripts provided in the archive.