Fig. 1

Locomotion enhances visual dominant decisions of mice under audiovisual conflicts by reducing auditory responses in PV⁺ neurons of the PPC. a Schematic illustration of the audiovisual discrimination task in head-fixed mice (top) and freely-navigating mice in the T-maze (bottom). b Auditory and visual stimuli used in training (left) and testing (right) audiovisual discrimination behaviors. c Behavioral results of mice under the audiovisual task in the head-fixed condition (left) and in the freely-navigating state in the T-maze (right). Colors in incongruent trials indicate auditory (blue) and visual (red) dominance rates. Circles indicate data from individual mice. Asterisks in incongruent trials indicate statistical comparisons with the chance level (0.5, gray dashed line). d Schematic illustration of in vivo calcium imaging from PV⁺ neurons in the PPC (left) and the stimuli presented to a mouse on the non-motorized treadmill (right). e Example field of views showing calcium activities of PPC PV⁺ neurons during 1 s after the stimulus onset. Red pixels indicate the fluorescent intensity became 5% brighter than the baseline. f Mean response amplitudes (0–1 s) of the PPC PV⁺ neurons to the auditory, visual, or audiovisual stimuli at stationary or moving conditions. g Schematic illustration of optogenetic activation of the PV⁺ neurons in the bilateral PPC. h Schematic illustration of how optogenetic stimulus is given during a trial. Blue shades indicate the area (left) and the time (right) where and when the optogenetic activation was given. i Changes in the correct rates (left) and auditory dominance rate (right) of mice by the optogenetic activation of the PPC PV⁺ neurons in the T-maze. Statistical comparison with chance level (‘0’) were indicated above each bar. Data are presented as means ± SEM. NS (non-significant); *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001; ****P < 0.0001. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, Mann–Whitney U tests for the behavior data (c and i), and Student’s t-test for the calcium imaging data (f) with the Bonferroni correction