Prefrontal neurons predict choices during an auditory same-different task.
The detection of stimuli is critical for an animal's survival [1]. However, it is not adaptive for an animal to respond automatically to every stimulus that is present in the environment [2-5]. Given that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a key role in executive function [6-8], we hypothesized that PFC activity should be involved in context-dependent responses to uncommon stimuli. As a test of this hypothesis, monkeys participated in a same-different task, a variant of an oddball task [2]. During this task, a monkey heard multiple presentations of a "reference" stimulus that were followed by a "test" stimulus and reported whether these stimuli were the same or different. While they participated in this task, we recorded from neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vPFC; a cortical area involved in aspects of nonspatial auditory processing [9, 10]). We found that vPFC activity was correlated with the monkeys' choices. This finding demonstrates a direct link between single neurons and behavioral choices in the PFC on a nonspatial auditory task.
Russ
Brian E
BE
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.
Orr
Lauren E
LE
Cohen
Yale E
YE
D000818:Animals; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*