Distributed functions of prefrontal and parietal cortices during sequential categorical decisions

eLife

Sruthi K Swaminathan¹  Nicolas Y Masse¹  Matthew C Rosen¹  Ou Zhu¹  David J Freedman²  Yang Zhou³ 

[1] Department of Neurobiology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, United States;Department of Neurobiology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, United States;Neuroscience Institute, The University of Chicago, Chicago, United States;Department of Neurobiology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, United States;School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China;

关键词: categorization;    delayed match to sample;    prefrontal;    parietal;    mixed selectivity;    recurrent neural network;    Rhesus macaque;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.58782

来源: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd

【 摘 要 】

Comparing sequential stimuli is crucial for guiding complex behaviors. To understand mechanisms underlying sequential decisions, we compared neuronal responses in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the lateral intraparietal (LIP), and medial intraparietal (MIP) areas in monkeys trained to decide whether sequentially presented stimuli were from matching (M) or nonmatching (NM) categories. We found that PFC leads M/NM decisions, whereas LIP and MIP appear more involved in stimulus evaluation and motor planning, respectively. Compared to LIP, PFC showed greater nonlinear integration of currently visible and remembered stimuli, which correlated with the monkeys’ M/NM decisions. Furthermore, multi-module recurrent networks trained on the same task exhibited key features of PFC and LIP encoding, including nonlinear integration in the PFC-like module, which was causally involved in the networks’ decisions. Network analysis found that nonlinear units have stronger and more widespread connections with input, output, and within-area units, indicating putative circuit-level mechanisms for sequential decisions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY