A Prefrontal Cortex Map based on Single-Neuron Activity

The intrinsic organization underlying the central cognitive role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC)is poorly understood. We approach organization by profiling the activity and spatial location of > 23,000 neurons recorded in awake mice. High-resolution activity maps of the PFC do not align with cytoarchitecturally defined subregions. Instead, spontaneous activity and tuning to choice during a behavioral task were both related to intra-PFC hierarchy, suggesting that connectivity, rather than cytoarchitecture, shapes the PFC’s activity landscape. Low-rate, regular spontaneous firing was a hallmark of the PFC and of high hierarchy. Surprisingly, choice tuning is over-represented in units displaying high spontaneous firing rates, linking connectivity-based hierarchy to distinct functional properties, in separate neuronal populations. Our data-driven approach provides a scalable roadmap to obtain an integrated view of activity, structure, and function in the brain, opening new avenues to explore functional organizations using single neuron activities across species and brain regions.