title: Behavioral response inhibition and maturation of goal representation in prefrontal cortex after puberty.
abstract: Executive functions including behavioral response inhibition mature after puberty, in tandem with structural changes in the prefrontal cortex. Little is known about how activity of prefrontal neurons relates to this profound cognitive development. To examine this, we tracked neuronal responses of the prefrontal cortex in monkeys as they transitioned from puberty into adulthood and compared activity at different developmental stages. Performance of the antisaccade task greatly improved in this period. Among neural mechanisms that could facilitate it, reduction of stimulus-driven activity, increased saccadic activity, or enhanced representation of the opposing goal location, only the latter was evident in adulthood. Greatly accentuated in adults, this neural correlate of vector inversion may be a prerequisite to the formation of a motor plan to look away from the stimulus. Our results suggest that the prefrontal mechanisms that underlie mature performance on the antisaccade task are more strongly associated with forming an alternative plan of action than with suppressing the neural impact of the prepotent stimulus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157; Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157;
authors.forename: Dantong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157;
authors.forename: Samson G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: King
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Section on Comparative Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157;
authors.forename: Cynthia J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Lees
authors.affiliation: Harlow Center for Biological Psychology, Psychology Department, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53715.
authors.forename: Allyson J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Bennett
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157;
authors.forename: Emilio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Salinas
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157;
authors.forename: Terrence R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Stanford
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157; cconstan@wakehealth.edu.
authors.forename: Christos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Constantinidis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008297:Male; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D012741:Sexual Maturation
keywords: adolescence; antisaccade; monkey; neurophysiology; prefrontal