title: Task-driven intra- and interarea communications in primate cerebral cortex.
abstract: Neural correlations during a cognitive task are central to study brain information processing and computation. However, they have been poorly analyzed due to the difficulty of recording simultaneous single neurons during task performance. In the present work, we quantified neural directional correlations using spike trains that were simultaneously recorded in sensory, premotor, and motor cortical areas of two monkeys during a somatosensory discrimination task. Upon modeling spike trains as binary time series, we used a nonparametric Bayesian method to estimate pairwise directional correlations between many pairs of neurons throughout different stages of the task, namely, perception, working memory, decision making, and motor report. We find that solving the task involves feedforward and feedback correlation paths linking sensory and motor areas during certain task intervals. Specifically, information is communicated by task-driven neural correlations that are significantly delayed across secondary somatosensory cortex, premotor, and motor areas when decision making takes place. Crucially, when sensory comparison is no longer requested for task performance, a major proportion of directional correlations consistently vanish across all cortical areas.
authors.affiliation: Center for Brain and Cognition, Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08018 Barcelona, Spain;
authors.forename: Adrià
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tauste Campo
authors.affiliation: Center for Brain and Cognition, Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08018 Barcelona, Spain; Department of Ophthalmology and Institute of Neuropathology, RWTH Aachen University, 52076 Aachen, Germany;
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Martinez-Garcia
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Fisiología Celular-Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico D.F., Mexico;
authors.forename: Verónica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Nácher
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Fisiología Celular-Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico D.F., Mexico;
authors.forename: Rogelio
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Luna
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Fisiología Celular-Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Mexico D.F., Mexico; El Colegio Nacional, 06020 Mexico D.F., Mexico; and rromo@ifc.unam.mx.
authors.forename: Ranulfo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Romo
authors.affiliation: Center for Brain and Cognition, Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08018 Barcelona, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, 08010 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Gustavo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Deco
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D008253:Macaca mulatta / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: decision making; information theory; large-scale cortical networks; spike-train analysis; vibrotactile discrimination
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