Differential representation of sensory information and behavioral choice across layers of the mouse auditory cortex

The activity of neurons in sensory areas sometimes covaries with upcoming choices in decision -making tasks. However, the prevalence, causal origin, and functional role of choice -related activity remain controversial. Understanding the circuit -logic of decision signals in sensory areas will require understanding their laminar specificity, but simultaneous recordings of neural activity across the cortical layers in forced -choice discrimination tasks have not yet been performed. Here, we describe neural activity from such recordings in the auditory cortex of mice during a frequency discrimination task with delayed report, which, as we show, requires the auditory cortex. Stimulus -related information was widely distributed across layers but disappeared very quickly after stimulus offset. Choice selectivity emerged toward the end of the delay period- suggesting a top -down origin-but only in the deep layers. Early stimulus -selective and late choice -selective deep neural ensembles were correlated, suggesting that the choice -selective signal fed back to the auditory cortex is not just action specific but develops as a consequence of the sensory -motor contingency imposed by the task.