Figure 2. Photoactivation of layer 4 to guide locomotion.

(a) Schematic of an illusory corridor generated with position-dependent photoactivation. In the center of the corridor the laser intensity was zero. On the right side of the corridor the left barrel cortex was stimulated and vice versa. The laser power increased with proximity to the edge of the corridor. (b) Twenty randomly selected running trajectories from three different turn angles during closed-loop photoactivation (left, pink; straight, gray; right, purple). (c) Average angle error during trials of whisker-based wall-tracking, barrel cortex activation, visual or parietal cortex activation, and no cues. Barrel cortex photoactivation was able to drive a behavior resembling wall tracking (p = 1.7*10⁻⁸ t-test; 8 mice). Trials with barrel cortex activation, visual or parietal cortex activation, and no whisker or photostimulation cues were randomly interleaved. Trials with whisker-based wall-tracking were recorded in separate sessions. Half of the mice performed the photoactivation sessions after the wall-tracking sessions and half of the mice performed them before.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.12559.004

Figure 2—figure supplement 1. Unilateral activation in mice running in a real corridor.

(a) Twenty randomly selected running trajectories in a straight corridor either with no photoactivation (gray) or with photoactivation of layer 4 of the right barrel cortex (purple). (b) Average activity (6 cells) evoked by photoactivation during cell attached recordings in awake, non-behaving mice as a function of laser power (mean ± SE). (c) Wall distance bias evoked by photoactivation of barrel (left) and visual / pariental cortex (right) as a function of laser power (8 mice, mean ± SE).

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.12559.005