Behavior-dLDS: A decomposed linear dynamical systems model for neural activity partially constrained by behavior

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yezerets, Eva, Yang, En, Ahrens, Misha B., Charles, Adam S.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Yezerets, Eva
Yang, En
Ahrens, Misha B.
Charles, Adam S.
author_facet Yezerets, Eva
Yang, En
Ahrens, Misha B.
Charles, Adam S.
contents Brain-wide recordings of large-scale networks of neurons now provide an unprecedented view into how the brain drives behavior. However, brain activity contains both information directly related to behavior as well as the potential for many internal computations. Moreover, observable behavior is executed not only by the brain, but also by the spinal cord and peripheral nervous system. Behavior is a coarse-grained product of neural activity, and we thus take the view that it can be best represented by lower-dimensional latent neural dynamics. Capturing this indirect relationship while disambiguating behavior-generating networks from internal computations running in parallel requires new modeling approaches that can embody the parallel and distributed nature of large-scale neural populations. We thus present behavior-decomposed linear dynamical systems (b-dLDS) to disentangle simultaneously recorded subsystems and identify how the latent neural subsystems relate to behavior. We demonstrate the ability of b-dLDS to decouple behavioral vs. internal computations on controlled, simulated data, showing improvements over a state-of-the-art model that uses behavior to supervise all dynamics based on behavior. We also demonstrate b-dLDS's interpretability benefits on a task-driven RNN dataset featuring a nonlinear relationship between behavior and activations. We then show that b-dLDS can further scale up to tens of thousands of neurons by applying our model to a large-scale recording of a zebrafish hindbrain during the complex positional homeostasis behavior, wherein b-dLDS highlights asymmetry in behavior-related dynamic connectivity networks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_05612
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Behavior-dLDS: A decomposed linear dynamical systems model for neural activity partially constrained by behavior
Yezerets, Eva
Yang, En
Ahrens, Misha B.
Charles, Adam S.
Neurons and Cognition
Machine Learning
Applications
Brain-wide recordings of large-scale networks of neurons now provide an unprecedented view into how the brain drives behavior. However, brain activity contains both information directly related to behavior as well as the potential for many internal computations. Moreover, observable behavior is executed not only by the brain, but also by the spinal cord and peripheral nervous system. Behavior is a coarse-grained product of neural activity, and we thus take the view that it can be best represented by lower-dimensional latent neural dynamics. Capturing this indirect relationship while disambiguating behavior-generating networks from internal computations running in parallel requires new modeling approaches that can embody the parallel and distributed nature of large-scale neural populations. We thus present behavior-decomposed linear dynamical systems (b-dLDS) to disentangle simultaneously recorded subsystems and identify how the latent neural subsystems relate to behavior. We demonstrate the ability of b-dLDS to decouple behavioral vs. internal computations on controlled, simulated data, showing improvements over a state-of-the-art model that uses behavior to supervise all dynamics based on behavior. We also demonstrate b-dLDS's interpretability benefits on a task-driven RNN dataset featuring a nonlinear relationship between behavior and activations. We then show that b-dLDS can further scale up to tens of thousands of neurons by applying our model to a large-scale recording of a zebrafish hindbrain during the complex positional homeostasis behavior, wherein b-dLDS highlights asymmetry in behavior-related dynamic connectivity networks.
title Behavior-dLDS: A decomposed linear dynamical systems model for neural activity partially constrained by behavior
topic Neurons and Cognition
Machine Learning
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.05612