Population coding of task events in the prefrontal cortex

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Population coding of task events in the prefrontal cortex Hamed Nili1*, Makoto Kusunoki2, Natasha Sigala3, David Gaffan2 and John Duncan1 1 RC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, United Kingdom 2 University of Oxford, United Kingdom 3 Brighton and Sussex Medical School, United Kingdom We have recently shown evidence for extensive temporally evolving opponent organization in monkey prefrontal cortex during a cued target detection task (Kusunoki et al., 2010). The largest set of neurons showed target-positive activity, with the strongest response to the target (T), intermediate activity for a nontarget that was a target on other trials (inconsistent nontarget or Ni), and lowest activity for nontargets never associated with the target category (consistent nontarget or Nc). Second most frequent was a reverse, antitarget pattern. The goal of this study is to explore the pattern that emerges when considering responses of a whole neural population.Data were recorded for 653 cells, distributed across dorsal and ventral convexities and along both banks of the principal sulcus. For each session, the experiment involved three cue-target pairs, and a fourth picture (Nc) never used as a target. At each trial, once fixation had been held for 500 msec, a cue picture was presented, followed by zero to three non-targets and finally the cued target, all in the same position (left or right). Following the approach taken by Sigala et al. (2008), a correlation matrix was formed by finding the correlation between distributed patterns of activity across the population of cells for different events of the task (e.g. correlation between the distributed patterns for T, Ni and Nc). Distributed patterns of activity revealed a strong separation of phasic- and tonic-response cells. The most distinct patterns were for different task events (cues, working memory delays, choice stimuli). Within the set of choice stimuli, opponent coding was again visible, with most dissimilar activity patterns for T and Nc. Opponent coding is thus manifest as modulation of a broad frontal activity pattern distinguishing choice from other task stages. Keywords: Cognition, Prefrontal Cortex Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Neurophysiology of Cognition and Attention Citation: Nili H, Kusunoki M, Sigala N, Gaffan D and Duncan J (2011). Population coding of task events in the prefrontal cortex. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00465 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: 25 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Hamed Nili, RC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge,, United Kingdom, hamed.nili@psy.ox.ac.uk 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 Hamed Nili Makoto Kusunoki Natasha Sigala David Gaffan John Duncan Google Hamed Nili Makoto Kusunoki Natasha Sigala David Gaffan John Duncan Google Scholar Hamed Nili Makoto Kusunoki Natasha Sigala David Gaffan John Duncan PubMed Hamed Nili Makoto Kusunoki Natasha Sigala David Gaffan John Duncan 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.