The Timing of Reward-Seeking Action Tracks Visually-Cued Theta Oscillations in Primary Visual Cortex

An emerging body of work challenges the view that primary visual cortex (V1) faithfully represents the visual world. Along this line, theta oscillations in the local field potential (LFP) of V1 have been found to convey temporal expectations and, specifically, express the delay between a visual stimulus and the reward it portends. We extend this work by showing how these oscillatory states in male, wild-type rats can even relate to the timing of a visually-cued, reward-seeking behavior. In particular, we show that with training, high precision and accuracy in behavioral timing tracks the power of these oscillations, and that the time of action execution covaries with their duration. These LFP oscillations are also intimately related to spiking responses at the single unit level, which themselves carry predictive timing information. Together, these observations extend our understanding of the role of cortical oscillations in timing, generally, and V19s role in the timing of visually-cued behaviors, specifically. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Traditionally, Primary Visual Cortex (V1) has been regarded as playing a purely perceptual role in stimulus-driven behaviors. Recent work has challenged that view by showing that theta oscillations in rodent V1 may come to convey timed expectations. Here, we show that these theta oscillations carry predictive information about timed reward-seeking actions, thus elucidating a behavioral role for theta oscillations in V1 and extending our understanding of V19s role in decision-making.