Arseny Finkelstein

Tel Aviv University

June 17, 2026

From microcircuits to cortex-wide networks: connectivity and information-flow underlying goal-directed behavior

Regulation of information flow in neuronal circuits is fundamental to flexible, goal-directed behavior. In this talk, I will discuss how cortical circuits organize neural activity and connectivity across spatial scales, from local microcircuits to distributed cortex-wide networks. Using naturalistic multidirectional reaching in mice, combined with large-scale calcium imaging and causal connectivity mapping of >20,000,000 neuronal pairs, we identified connectivity motifs and population dynamics underlying goal-directed behavior. I will first describe the organizational principles of the motor cortex, where neurons are arranged into functional mini-columns with recurrent connectivity motifs linked to task-related activity, and discuss the potential computational advantages of this architecture. I will then show how these principles extend to larger spatial scales. Imaging ~1,000,000 neurons across 10 cortical regions revealed high-dimensional local population activity patterns alongside coordinated cortex-wide dynamics mediated by synchronized inter-areal communication. These distributed network dynamics supported high-dimensional representations of short-term memory for target location.  Together, these findings reveal how cortical networks are organized across spatial scales to support cognition.