Heading and then saccades predict visual discrimination decisions in freely moving ferrets

A fundamental challenge in neuroscience is to understand how cognitive processes like making decisions occur during natural behaviors. Recent technological advances have made it possible to rigorously measure body and eye movements in freely moving animal subjects. Here, we leverage these capabilities to determine whether heading or eye movements predict decisions in ferrets performing visual discrimination tasks. We show that ferrets indicate their choices by orienting first with their heads and then with their eyes. Heading position also revealed animals' individual biases. These results demonstrate that heading is the most reliable indicator of individual subjects' decision making in real time, providing a non-invasive readout of cognition in freely moving subjects.