ArticleNeuron2026
Spontaneous behavior is a succession of self-directed tasks.
Article in Neuron, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Canonical decision computations underlie behavioral and neural signatures of cooperation in primates.Neuron · 2026Article
- Article
- Using timescale as a state coordinate reveals the metastable geometry of behavior.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Solvable models of learning to pursue a moving target.Reinforcement learning journal · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Animals achieve high-level goals by sequencing low-level actions. This transformation is best understood in structured tasks that impose a specific mapping between goals and actions. However, it remains unclear whether spontaneous behavior is similarly organized in the service of identifiable goals or how it might be supported by brain regions responsible for goal-oriented behavior, such as the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Here, we show that low-level actions in freely exploring mice are hierarchically organized into seconds-long behavioral states that correspond to task-like programs of behavior. These persistent states structure neural activity in the PFC, which preferentially encodes the identity of states relative to low-level behavioral features and shapes which states are expressed in a given context. These findings argue that spontaneous behavior is organized as a succession of self-directed tasks and identify principles of neural control that are common to structured tasks and spontaneous exploration.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.