Endogenous and exogenous control of visuospatial selective attention in freely behaving mice

Visuospatial selective attention has been investigated primarily in head-fixed animals and almost exclusively in primates. Here, we develop two human-inspired, discrimination-based behavioral paradigms for studying selective visuospatial attention in freely behaving mice. In the ‘spatial probability’ task, we find enhanced accuracy, sensitivity, and rate of evidence accumulation at the location with higher probability of target occurrence, and opposite effects at the lower probability location. Together with video-based 3D head-tracking, these results demonstrate endogenous expectation-driven shifts of spatial attention. In the ‘flanker’ task, we find that a second stimulus presented with the target, but with conflicting information, causes switch-like decrements in accuracy and sensitivity as a function of its contrast, and slower evidence accumulation, demonstrating exogenous capture of spatial attention. The ability to study primate-like selective attention rigorously in unrestrained mice opens a rich avenue for research into neural circuit mechanisms underlying this critical executive function in a naturalistic setting.