Figure 7. Two additional cognitive tasks reveal how cell classes differentially encode task signals.

(A) Task design. Mice first discriminated four possible odors to receive a 4μL reward per successful trial. They then immediately switched to an uncued task of repeated left (L-uncued) or right (R-uncued) trials in blocks, resulting in six trial types in the same imaging session.

(B) Trial-averaged activity of all positively modulated cells during the cued task (left) sorted by the time of maximal activity and grouped by cell class (n = 110 PAG-projecting, 89 cPFC-projecting, 348 Rbp4Cre-labeled cells) followed by trial-averaged activity of the same cells during the uncued task (right).

(C) Example Odor- (L-2 only), Choice- (L-1 + L-2), and Side-selective (R-1 + R-2 + R-uncued) cells with single-trial (top) and trial-averaged activity (bottom). Vertical dashed line denotes nose poke/odor onset.

(D) Proportions of cells positively modulated in the Decision epoch, grouped by cell class, and categorized as Odor-, Choice-, or Side-selective using linear regression. Comparison across classes was performed using a permutation test.

(E) Example cells with preferential activity during L-uncued trials (left) or R-uncued trials (right). Vertical dashed line denotes nose poke/odor onset.

(F) Population neural activity trajectories summarizing trial-averaged traces of left versus right uncued trials using the first three PCs in activity state space. All imaged cells were included (n = 1248).

(G) Same as (F) except that all six trial types are plotted, and only the Approach epoch leading up to the nose poke/odor onset is analyzed.

(H) Average reward context prediction accuracy (left versus right block-type) over the course of the uncued task, across mice (n = 4 PAG-projecting, 5 cPFC-projecting, and 8 Rbp4Cre-labeled mice), from data randomly subsampled to 25 cells per mouse (one-way ANOVA, post hoc Tukey’s HSD test).

(I) Average reward context prediction accuracy during the Approach epoch as a function of the number of cells included in the logistic regression analysis.

(J) Schematic summary. Rbp4Cre-labeled cells in vmPFC are divided into cell classes defined by differential gene expression (Npr3+; Figf+/Cxcr7+/Cd44+, simplified as Figf+), which predominantly route different information (cued choice or uncued reward context) to different targets (PAG or cPFC). Note that PAG and cPFC are not the only sites these neurons project to. Our data also suggest that Rbp4Cre-labeled cells contain a subclass that preferentially encodes reward, distinct from PAG- or cPFC-projecting cells.

See also Figures S6C and S7.