Task Engagement Gates Interareal Communication Geometry in the Mouse Thalamocortical-Midbrain Visual Circuit

Authors

Amalberti, L., Hauer, M., Bennett, C., Olsen, S. R., Dahmen, D., Recanatesi, S.

Abstract

Visual processing unfolds across hierarchically organized brain circuits. Existing theories largely explain changes in population geometry through local shifts in gain, firing-rate statistics, or recurrent dynamics, yet do not account for how interareal coordination interacts with local population geometry to constrain downstream population states. We used task engagement, compared to a passive condition, to probe this coordination in Neuropixels recordings spanning the mouse visual thalamocortical-midbrain circuit. Engagement reduced network activity, response participation, and dimensionality across the hierarchy. To account for this circuit-level organization, we developed a theoretical framework in which afferent population geometry interacts with local recurrent dynamics to constrain the accessible dynamics of downstream populations. Across the thalamocortical stages, population-wide afferent statistics predicted downstream activity and dimensionality. At the cortex--midbrain interface, engagement instead reorganized interareal communication geometry. Together, these results identify interareal input geometry as a key constraint on neural population dynamics and uncover a general principle by which behavioral engagement constrains neural state spaces across distributed visual circuits.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 22 Sep 2026.

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