Local and Global Influences of Visual Spatial Selection and Locomotion in Mouse Primary Visual Cortex

Sensory selection and movement locally and globally modulate neural responses in seemingly similar ways. For example, locomotion enhances visual responses in mouse primary visual cortex (V1), resembling the effects of spatial attention on primate visual cortical activity. However, interactions between these local and global mechanisms and the resulting effects on perceptual behavior remain largely unknown. Here, we describe a novel mouse visual spatial selection task in which animals either monitor one of two locations for a contrast change (“selective mice”) or monitor both (“non-selective mice”) and can run at will. Selective mice perform well only when their selected stimulus changes, giving rise to local electrophysiological changes in the corresponding hemisphere of V1 including decreased noise correlations and increased visual information. Non-selective mice perform well when either stimulus changes, giving rise to global changes across both hemispheres of V1. During locomotion, selective mice have worse behavioral performance, increased noise correlations in V1, and decreased visual information, while non-selective mice have decreased noise correlations in V1 but no change in performance or visual information. Our findings demonstrate that mice can locally or globally enhance visual information, but the interaction of the global effect of locomotion with local selection impairs behavioral performance. Moving forward, this mouse model will facilitate future studies of local and global sensory modulatory mechanisms and their effects on behavior. •Mice were trained in a spatially selective or non-selective visual task•Selective mice locally modulate V1, while non-selective mice globally modulate V1•Locomotion’s effect on behavior and neural activity depends on behavioral context•Locomotion impairs behavior and visual information in local, but not global mice The effects of locomotion on mouse visual cortical activity are often compared to those of primate spatial attention. Here, McBride et al. show that behavioral and neural effects of locomotion differ depending on the trained visual task. Locally selective mice are impaired by global locomotion effects, while non-selective mice are unaffected.