Population-level encoding of task information is stronger in the adolescent compared to adult frontal cortex.

Madeline E Klinger, Hongli Wang, Lung-Hao Tai, Albert J Qü, Mei Murphy, Linda Wilbrecht

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Article in Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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5 · Who and what money

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6 authors.

Madeline E KlingerDepartment of Neuroscience/Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Hongli WangDepartment of Neuroscience/Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Lung-Hao TaiDepartment of Neuroscience/Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Albert J QüDepartment of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Mei MurphyDepartment of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Linda WilbrechtDepartment of Neuroscience/Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. Electronic address: wilbrecht@berkeley.edu.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Adolescence is commonly claimed to be a 'sensitive period,' but it is not clear how experience at this age may have stronger impact than in adulthood. We hypothesized that enhanced sensitivity to experience during adolescence may manifest as stronger encoding of task-related information in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). To study neural activity in layer 2/3 of the developing mouse dmPFC, we used a microscope to image mice while they learned an auditory go/no-go task. We found adolescent mice (30-45 days old) learned the task to criterion faster than adult mice (60-75 days old). When we compared activity in expert mice with comparable performance between the two age groups, we found that a similar fraction of single cells encoded task variables. However, task information could be better decoded from the adolescent dmPFC population activity than the adult. Adolescents also showed greater noise correlation than adults and shuffling to remove this noise correlation suggested noise correlation contributed to gain of function in adolescent compared to adult brain. We suggest a working model for adolescent brain function in which greater noise correlation supports greater capacity for distributed encoding of information driving increased sensitivity to experiences at this stage of life.

Indexed as

LearningPrefrontal CortexAge FactorsAnimalsFemaleMaleMiceMice, Inbred C57BLNeuronsAdolescentJuvenileLearningNoise correlationPopulation encodingPrefrontal cortexSensitive period

Identifiers

PMID41653561

DOI10.1016/j.dcn.2026.101685

PMCPMC12907720

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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.