Brain map reveals full brain activity in decision making

An international team maps activity across almost the entire mouse brain during decision making, showing a widespread network.

Brain map reveals full brain activity in decision making

Neuroscientists from 22 labs created a brain wide map of activity during decision making in 139 mice, recording from more than 600,000 neurons across 279 brain areas with Neuropixels probes. The data, published in Nature on September 3, cover about 95 percent of the mouse brain and show that decisions engage a widespread neural network rather than a few dedicated spots.

To build the map the team standardised procedures across labs and stitched together data into a single, shared dataset. The two studies reveal both the broad spread of electrical activity during decision making and how prior expectations shape choices. The work, described as a Sloan Digital Sky Survey for the brain, is pitched by its authors as a blueprint for future cross lab collaborations and a resource to guide deeper questions about how brains produce behavior.

These results push neuroscience toward network thinking. The idea that a decision comes from a handful of nodes is replaced by a sense of a coordinated brain wide effort. That shift should change how scientists design experiments and interpret brain signals in real tasks.

At the same time the effort highlights questions about data sharing, funding, and how findings translate from mice to humans. A large, open collaboration can accelerate discovery if it is open and well validated, but it also requires careful checks to avoid over interpretation of patterns seen in the living brain.

Highlights

The map sets a higher bar for how we study the brain, inviting a new era of collaborative science.