Transcript Adaptive, behaviorally gated, persistent encoding of task

Adaptive, behaviorally gated, persistent
encoding of task-relevant auditory
information in ferret frontal cortex
introductions
• Studies of prefrontal cortex (PFC) have provided
considerable evidence for it being involved in high-level
executive functions.
• Top-down signals from frontal cortex are thought to be
important in cognitive control of sensory processing
• A fundamental component of these functions is the
cognitive control of the flow of sensory inputs through
cortex via top-down feedback from PFC.
introductions
• If frontal cortex is a source of top-down command signals
that modulate sensory representations for optimal
processing of task- relevant information, one would predict
that this modulation would be contingent on behavioral
state and task-dependent stimulus meaning. One would
also predict a strong correspondence between modulation
of evoked sensory responses in frontal cortex and in taskrelevant sensory areas.
• To explore and test this hypothesis, they used the ferret to
study frontal cortex (including areas in the orbital gyrus
(OBG) and anterior sigmoid gyrus (ASG) ) control of auditory
behavior.
introductions
• They recorded the activity of single neurons and
the local field potential (LFP) in two cortical areas
of ferret frontal cortex (ASG and the dorsal aspect
of OBG) during auditory discrimination behaviors
(tone detection and two-tone discrimination.
• They compared activity in ferret frontal cortex
and primary auditory cortex (A1) during auditory
and visual tasks requiring discrimination between
classes of reference and target stimuli.
Methods and Results: recording locations
Methods and Results: the basic structure of all tasks
• Behavior: ferrets learned by conditioned
avoidance to lick water from a spout during
the presentation of a class of reference stimuli
and to cease licking after the presentation of
the class of target stimuli to avoid a mild
shock.
• Sensory (Auditory or visual) stimuli:
Methods and Results: Frontal cortex responses are gated by behavior
Methods and Results:
suppression and excitation
Methods and Results: Frontal cortex responses encode behavioral meaning of stimuli
Methods and Results:
Persistence and extinction of postbehavioral responses
Methods and Results: Category-specific changes in LFP
across frontal cortex and A1
Methods and Results: Frontal cortex responses to
auditory and visual target stimuli
Discussion
• Behavioral gating of frontal cortex responses : The majority of
responses in frontal cortex were behaviorally gated and highly selective for
target stimuli, with roughly equal numbers of neurons showing enhanced
or suppressed modulation during behavior.
• Adaptive and selective representation of target stimuli :
The ability to change behavioral and neural responses to identical
sensory stimuli, depending on current task and context, is an
essential component of flexible, goal-directed behavior. Neurons in
frontal cortex are likely to contribute to this adaptive ability
because of their extraordinary flexibility, responding differently to
identical stimuli depending on the task requirements and
behavioral contexts. Their results are consistent with these findings,
as demonstrated by the rapid, adaptive change in coding between
tone-detection and tone-discrimination tasks.
Discussion
• Array of response latencies and event timing in frontal cortex :The
time at which cortical neurons respond to sensory stimuli can
provide insight into their functional role and the level that the
neurons occupy in the bi-directional sensory-to–decision-making
hierarchy. In frontal cortex neurons, target modulation latencies
ranged from early to late (from 20 ms to over 1,500 ms).
• The lasting imprint of attention in A1 and frontal cortex :Frontal
cortex neurons exhibited adaptive responses that were markedly
similar in their rapid onset with behavior and variable persistence
following behavior to changes in spectro-temporal receptive field
shape for salient acoustic features in A1. As in A1, frontal cortex
recordings post-behavior revealed responses that could persist for
minutes to hours following task performance. They suggest that
these persistent responses, triggered by attention, correspond to
changes in stimulus meaning that last long after the behavioral
epoch.
Discussion
• LFP gating and feature-selective changes in
inter-areal coherence : Their simultaneous
measurements of LFP in A1 and frontal cortex
revealed coherence that changed substantially
depending on behavioral state and the behavioral
meaning of incoming stimuli. The clear decrease
in coherence was selective for A1 sites that
responded to the target frequency (near cells),
whereas only a small change was observed when
target frequency was distant from the best
frequency of the A1 site (far cells).
• Thanks for your attention!