Differential degree of learning induced plasticity in primate lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) during auditory working

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Differential degree of learning induced plasticity in primate lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) during auditory working Hyun S. Kang1*, Christos Constantinidis2, Elsie Spingath1, Thane K. Plummer1, Jon Isaac1, Jonathan M. Crawford1 and David T. Blake1 1 Van der Veer Institute for Parkinson's and Brain Research, Brain and Behavior Discovery Institute, United States 2 Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, United States The sensory cortex has shown that learning causes a non-transient increase in cortical response strength to the target stimulus, and differential degrees of cortical strength have been observed throughout learning progression. The current study investigates the learning-induced plasticity in the primate lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) in response to various task demands. We studied these issues using chronic cortical implants, allowing continued recordings over a period of months. The implants have 64 electrodes, each of which can be vertically positioned independently. The cortical implant was surgically placed lateral to the principal sulcus, sampling a 4x4-mm surface area. Single unit & multiunit recordings were sampled from more than 40 electrodes daily. As a control plasticity study, broad responses to acoustic stimuli were first collected before any behavioral training. We observed few responses to tone stimuli and macaque vocal calls during passive listening and before training. Animals were subsequently trained to hold a lever for 2 to 3 seconds while task-irrelevant tone stimuli were added at random times during the trial. Still, no tone-evoked action potential responses were observed, although task-evoked activity related to the press & release of the lever was observed. Then, shaping was initiated in a working memory task requiring the comparison of two stimuli presented in sequence with an intervening delay period. The animals then trained to perform the working memory task with a variety of intervening delays (1600ms, 800ms, 400ms). When the tonal stimuli became task-contingent and were delivered at predictable times during the lever-hold, lPFC neuronal responses were greatly elevated during the presentation of acoustic sound stimuli on some sessions, but not on others. The same sites could show acoustically-driven responses or not on the following days, with no apparent change in the recording quality. We also observed a degree of lPFC response strength where the high variance of firing rate correlated with a longer delay between the stimuli. Our results demonstrate that learning induced-plasticity is evident by the presence of tone-evoked responses only after behavioral training, and differential recruitment of the lPFC is dependant on the level of cognitive procedure. Conference: 2010 South East Nerve Net (SENN) and Georgia/South Carolina Neuroscience Consortium (GASCNC) conferences, Atlanta , United States, 5 Mar - 7 Mar, 2010. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Talks Citation: Kang HS, Constantinidis C, Spingath E, Plummer TK, Isaac J, Crawford JM and Blake DT (2010). Differential degree of learning induced plasticity in primate lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) during auditory working. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: 2010 South East Nerve Net (SENN) and Georgia/South Carolina Neuroscience Consortium (GASCNC) conferences. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.04.00012 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 15 Mar 2010; Published Online: 15 Mar 2010. * Correspondence: Hyun S Kang, Van der Veer Institute for Parkinson's and Brain Research, Brain and Behavior Discovery Institute, Christchurch, United States, hkang@students.mcg.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Hyun S Kang Christos Constantinidis Elsie Spingath Thane K Plummer Jon Isaac Jonathan M Crawford David T Blake Google Hyun S Kang Christos Constantinidis Elsie Spingath Thane K Plummer Jon Isaac Jonathan M Crawford David T Blake Google Scholar Hyun S Kang Christos Constantinidis Elsie Spingath Thane K Plummer Jon Isaac Jonathan M Crawford David T Blake PubMed Hyun S Kang Christos Constantinidis Elsie Spingath Thane K Plummer Jon Isaac Jonathan M Crawford David T Blake Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.