Keita Tamura | EPFL Graph Search

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K. Tamura is a Marie Curie Fellow at EPFL in Lausanne. He received BS in biophysics from Kyoto University, and MS and PhD in physiology from The University of Tokyo. In Tokyo, he combined optogenetics and psychophysics in macaque monkeys, and revealed that the perirhinal cortex causally drives subjective judgments of visual memory. In Lausanne, he has been studying how contextual judgements disconnect and reconnect causal brain circuits by combining optogenetics and calcium imaging in mice.

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Learning-related congruent and incongruent changes of excitation and inhibition in distinct cortical areas

Sylvain Crochet, Vahid Esmaeili, Georgios Foustoukos, Romain Guiet, Yanqi Liu, Anastasiia Oryshchuk, Carl Petersen, Keita Tamura

Excitatory and inhibitory neurons in diverse cortical regions are likely to contribute differentially to the transformation of sensory information into goal-directed motor plans. Here, we investigate the relative changes across mouse sensorimotor cortex in the activity of putative excitatory and inhibitory neurons—categorized as regular spiking (RS) or fast spiking (FS) according to their action potential (AP) waveform—comparing before and after learning of a whisker detection task with delayed licking as perceptual report. Surprisingly, we found that the whisker-evoked activity of RS versus FS neurons changed in opposite directions after learning in primary and secondary whisker motor cortices, while it changed similarly in primary and secondary orofacial motor cortices. Our results suggest that changes in the balance of excitation and inhibition in local circuits concurrent with changes in the long-range synaptic inputs in distinct cortical regions might contribute to performance of delayed sensory-to-motor transformation.

2022

Rapid suppression and sustained activation of distinct cortical regions for a delayed sensory-triggered motor response

Sylvain Crochet, Vahid Esmaeili, Georgios Foustoukos, Wulfram Gerstner, Yanqi Liu, Alireza Modirshanechi, Samuel Pavio Muscinelli, Anastasiia Oryshchuk, Carl Petersen, Keita Tamura

The neuronal mechanisms generating a delayed motor response initiated by a sensory cue remain elusive. Here, we tracked the precise sequence of cortical activity in mice transforming a brief whisker stimulus into delayed licking using wide-field calcium imaging, multiregion high-density electrophysiology, and time-resolved optogenetic manipulation. Rapid activity evoked by whisker deflection acquired two prominent features for task performance: (1) an enhanced excitation of secondary whisker motor cortex, suggesting its important role connecting whisker sensory processing to lick motor planning; and (2) a transient reduction of activity in orofacial sensorimotor cortex, which contributed to suppressing premature licking. Subsequent widespread cortical activity during the delay period largely correlated with anticipatory movements, but when these were accounted for, a focal sustained activity remained in frontal cortex, which was causally essential for licking in the response period. Our results demonstrate key cortical nodes for motor plan generation and timely execution in delayed goal-directed licking.

2021

Cortical circuits for transforming whisker sensation into goal-directed licking

Sylvain Crochet, Vahid Esmaeili, Georgios Foustoukos, Anastasiia Oryshchuk, Carl Petersen, Keita Tamura

Animals can learn to use sensory stimuli to generate motor actions in order to obtain rewards. However, the precise neuronal circuits driving learning and execution of a specific goal-directed sensory-to-motor transformation remain to be elucidated. Here, we review progress in understanding the contribution of cortical neuronal circuits to a task in which head-restrained water-restricted mice learn to lick a reward spout in response to whisker deflection. We first examine ‘innate’ pathways for whisker sensory processing and licking motor control, and then discuss how these might become linked through reward-based learning, perhaps enabled by cholinergic-gated and dopaminergic-gated plasticity. The aim is to uncover the synaptically connected neuronal pathways that mediate reward-based learning and execution of a well-defined sensory-to-motor transformation.

2020

BIO-615: Neural circuits for reward and aversion learning

Animals must learn from past experiences, to adapt their behavior to an ever-changing environment. Students will learn about the neuronal circuit mechanisms of reward-based learning, and of aversively-mediated learning, by studying the current scientific literature on these topics.

BIO-696: Neuronal circuits underlying goal-directed behavior

The brain can be viewed as a network of neurons receiving sensory input and carrying out experience- and context-dependent computations through complex synaptic interactions to drive motor output, i.e. behavior. Here, we will study recent advances in knowledge of neural circuits in the mouse brain.