title: Neural activity of orbitofrontal cortex contributes to control of waiting.
abstract: The willingness to wait for delayed reward and information is of fundamental importance for deliberative behaviors. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is thought to be a core component of the neural circuitry underlying the capacity to control waiting. However, the neural correlates of active waiting and the causal role of the OFC in the control of waiting still remain largely unknown. Here, we trained rats to perform a waiting task (waiting for a pseudorandom time to obtain the water reward), and recorded neuronal ensembles in the OFC throughout the task. We observed that subset OFC neurons exhibited ramping activities throughout the waiting process. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that neural activities during the waiting period even predicted the trial outcomes (patient vs. impatient) on a trial-by-trial basis. Furthermore, optogenetic activation of the OFC during the waiting period improved the waiting performance, but did not influence rats' movement to obtain the reward. Taken together, these findings reveal that the neural activity in the OFC contributes to the control of waiting.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience and CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.|Graduate School of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Xiong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience and CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.|Graduate School of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Hanfei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience and CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience and CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
authors.forename: Yanwang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience and CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China. zuorenwang@ion.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Zuoren
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D062308:Optogenetics / Q000379:methods; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D012201:Reward
keywords: electrophysiology; optogenetics; orbitofrontal cortex; rat; waiting