Here, a video of a mouse face has been edited to label 13 key points that correspond to different facial movements associated with individual spontaneous behaviors, like whisking, grooming and licking. Credit: Atika Syeda/HHMI Janelia Research Campus
Key points:
- A new tool, called Facemap, uses deep neural networks to map information about a mouse’s facial movements onto neural activity in the visual cortex.
- Compared to previous models, Facemap is faster, more accurate, and can predict twice as much neural activity in mice.
- Since its release, hundreds of researchers around the world have downloaded Facemap because the powerful tool is freely available and easy to use.
Mice constantly sweep their whiskers back and forth while sniffing the environment and grooming themselves. Scientists have tracked these actions to develop neural representations of what the animal is doing moment-by-moment across the brain. But how the brain uses these widespread signals is not well understood.
Now, a study published in Nature Neuroscience, details a new tool that can help researchers understand these enigmatic brain-wide signals. The tool, called Facemap, uses deep neural networks to map information about a mouse’s eye, whisker, nose, and mouth movements onto neural activity.
“All of these brain areas are driven by these movements,” said group leader Carsen Stringer of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Janelia Research Campus. “We think it is really important to get a better handle on what these movements actually are because our previous techniques really couldn’t tell us what they were."
The team examined 2,400 video frames and labeled 13 distinct points on the mouse face that represented individual behaviors including whisking, grooming, and licking. They developed a neural network-based model to correlate this facial point data to neural activity, providing insight into how spontaneous behaviors drive neural activity in a particular brain region.
From earlier work, the team knew that spontaneous behaviors activated neurons in the visual cortex – the brain region responsible for processing visual information from the eye. Facemap demonstrated that neuronal activity clusters were more spread out across the visual cortex than previously thought.
Compared with previous tracking methods, Facemap is faster, more accurate, and can predict twice as much neural activity in mice. Hundreds of researchers around the world have already downloaded Facemap because the powerful tool is freely available and easy to use.
“This is something that if anyone wanted to get started, they could download Facemap, run their videos, and get their results on the same day,” explained Atika Syeda of HHMI. “It just makes research in general, much easier.”