Part 7/10:
One of the primary challenges faced was interpreting complex data from the concurrent activity of 400 neurons—a seemingly overwhelming task. Thankfully, neuroscience employs techniques like dimensionality reduction to simplify such complexity.
A method of note is UMAP (Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection), which maps patterns of neural activity onto simpler structures. In the case of this study, it was discovered that the neural activity contained a consistent looped structure reflecting the layout of the maze.