Categorization of behavioural sequences in the prefrontal cortex

Shima, Keisetsu; Isoda, Masaki; Mushiake, Hajime; Tanji, Jun

doi:10.1038/nature05470

Cited by 226 publications

(170 citation statements)

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“…Previous studies have shown that frontal lobe neurons encode complex motor sequences based on conditional sensory cues stored in working memory (39)(40)(41). Therefore, an important role of the frontal lobe, notably prefrontal and premotor cortices, is the readout of information in working memory at the service of complex behavior (39).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural correlates of a postponed decision report

Lemus

Hernandez

Luna

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Depending on environmental demands, a decision based on a sensory evaluation may be either immediately reported or postponed for later report. If postponed, the decision must be held in memory. But what exactly is stored by the underlying memory circuits, the final decision itself or the sensory information that led to it? Here, we report that, during a postponed decision report period, the activity of medial premotor cortex neurons encodes both the result of the sensory evaluation that corresponds to the monkey's possible choices and past sensory information on which the decision is based. These responses could switch back and forth with remarkable flexibility across the postponed decision report period. Moreover, these responses covaried with the animal's decision report. We propose that maintaining in working memory the original stimulus information on which the decision is based could serve to continuously update the postponed decision report in this task.medial premotor cortex ͉ monkeys ͉ sensory discrimination ͉ working memory S tudies in behaving monkeys that combine psychophysical and neurophysiological experiments have provided new insights into how a neural representation of a sensory stimulus relates to perception (1-8), memory (9-12), and decision making (13-19). In particular, there has been important progress regarding the neural codes associated with these cognitive functions in the visual and somatic modality (20,21). The basic philosophy of this approach has been to investigate these cognitive functions by using highly simplified stimuli, so that diverse subcortical and cortical areas can be studied during the same behavior.In the task we previously used, monkeys report whether the second stimulus frequency (f2) is higher or lower than the first stimulus frequency (f1) (22). This cognitive operation requires that subjects compare information of f1 temporally stored in working memory to the current information of f2 to form a decision of whether f2 Ͼ f1 or f2 Ͻ f1, and to immediately report the outcome by pressing one of two push buttons. We found that the activity of the recorded neurons of several cortical areas encodes f1 in a monotonic firing rate code beginning in the primary somatosensory cortex (5-7), continuing in the secondary somatosensory cortex (5), the ventral premotor cortex (19), the prefrontal cortex (10), and the medial premotor cortex (MPc) (18). Except for the primary somatosensory cortex, these cortical areas encode information of f1 during the delay period between f1 and f2 (5,10,11,(17)(18)(19). During presentation of f2, some neurons of all these cortical areas respond to f2, but some other neurons reflect past information of f1, or of the difference between f2 and f1, and generate a differential response consistent with the decision motor report (17)(18)(19). In this chain of neural processes, the primary motor cortex becomes engaged only during the motor report period (19,21). These results showed that the stimulus parameters of f1 and f2 and their interactions can be dec...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural correlates of a postponed decision report

Lemus

Hernandez

Luna

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Furthermore, lPFC neurons coded the spatial endpoints during tracking of a maze more often than the individual movements to be performed (Saito et al, 2005). More recently, lPFC neurons were found to represent the category of temporal patterns constituting a series of actions (Shima et al, 2007). In view of the wealth of abstractlevel coding of actions demonstrated in previous reports, the action-selective activity of lPFC neurons found in this study likely codes the action substantially in an abstract sense; in particular, it likely represents an intentional aspect of action to capture the target on the screen rather than specifying movement itself.…”

Section: Representation and Processing Of Information For Action Specmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinct Information Representation and Processing for Goal-Directed Behavior in the Dorsolateral and Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex and the Dorsal Premotor Cortex

et al. 2012

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Although the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) and dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) are thought to be involved in goal-directed behavior, the specific roles of each area still remain elusive. To characterize and compare neuronal activity in two sectors of the lPFC [dorsal (dlPFC) and ventral (vlPFC)] and the PMd, we designed a behavioral task for monkeys to explore the differences in their participation in four aspects of information processing: encoding of visual signals, behavioral goal retrieval, action specification, and maintenance of relevant information. We initially presented a visual object (an instruction cue) to instruct a behavioral goal (reaching to the right or left of potential targets). After a subsequent delay, a choice cue appeared at various locations on a screen, and the animals could specify an action to achieve the behavioral goal. We found that vlPFC neurons amply encoded object features of the instruction cues for behavioral goal retrieval and, subsequently, spatial locations of the choice cues for specifying the actions. By contrast, dlPFC and PMd neurons rarely encoded the object features, although they reflected the behavioral goals throughout the delay period. After the appearance of the choice cues, the PMd held information for action throughout the specification and preparation of reaching movements. Remarkably, lPFC neurons represented information for the behavioral goal continuously, even after the action specification as well as during its execution. These results indicate that area-specific representation and information processing at progressive stages of the perception-action transformation in these areas underlie goal-directed behavior.

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“…In the behavioural paradigms applied in these studies, the temporal sequence of movements was instructed visually and, in most cases, memorized by the monkeys so that it could be repetitively reproduced, before moving on to another sequence of targets, and so on. Still in monkeys (Barone and Joseph, 1989;Funahashi et al, 1993;Ninokura et al, 2004;Shima et al, 2007;Berdyyeva and Olson, 2010), a fairly comparable representation of motor sequencing was found in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). A role played by SMA in the control of motor sequences has also been found in human subjects (e.g., Gerloff et al, 1997;Boecker et al, 1998;Deiber et al, 1999;Lepage et al, 1999;Schubotz and Von Cramon, 2001;Verwey et al, 2002;Van Mier et al, 2004;Bengtsson et al, 2004;Kennerley et al, 2004;Tanaka et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Representation of motor habit in a sequence of repetitive reach and grasp movements performed by macaque monkeys: Evidence for a contribution of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Kaeser

Wannier

Brunet

et al. 2013

Cortex

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In the context of an autologous cell transplantation study, a unilateral biopsy of cortical tissue was surgically performed from the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in two intact adult macaque monkeys (dlPFC lesioned group), together with the implantation of a chronic chamber providing access to the left motor cortex. Three other monkeys were subjected to the same chronic chamber implantation, but without dlPFC biopsy (control group). All monkeys were initially trained to perform sequential manual dexterity tasks, requiring precision grip. The motor performance and the prehension's sequence (temporal order to grasp pellets from different spatial locations) were analysed for each hand.Following the surgery, transient and moderate deficits of manual dexterity per se occurred in both groups, indicating that they were not due to the dlPFC lesion (most likely related to the recording chamber implantation and/or general anaesthesia/medication). In contrast, changes of motor habit were observed for the sequential order of grasping in the two monkeys with dlPFC lesion only. The changes were more prominent in the monkey subjected to the largest lesion, supporting the notion of a specific effect of the dlPFC lesion on the motor habit of the monkeys. These observations are reminiscent of previous studies using conditional tasks with delay that have proposed a specialization of the dlPFC for visuo-spatial working memory, except that this is in a different context of "free-will", nonconditional manual dexterity task, without a component of working memory.

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Categorization of behavioural sequences in the prefrontal cortex

Cited by 226 publications

References 28 publications

Neural correlates of a postponed decision report

Neural correlates of a postponed decision report

Distinct Information Representation and Processing for Goal-Directed Behavior in the Dorsolateral and Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex and the Dorsal Premotor Cortex

Representation of motor habit in a sequence of repetitive reach and grasp movements performed by macaque monkeys: Evidence for a contribution of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

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