Single neurons in prefrontal cortex encode abstract rules

Wallis, Jonathan D.; Anderson, Kenneth W.; Miller, Earl K.

doi:10.1038/35082081

Cited by 914 publications

(790 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Supporting this view are data showing that damage to prefrontal cortex impairs abstraction abilities (e.g., Dominey & Georgieff, 1997), and that prefrontal cortex in monkeys develops more abstract category representations than those in posterior cortex (Wallis, Anderson, & Miller, 2001;Freedman, Riesenhuber, Poggio, & Miller, 2002;Nieder, Freedman, & Miller, 2002).…”

Section: Current Progress and Future Directionssupporting

confidence: 49%

Banishing the homunculus: Making working memory work

2006

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Abstract:The prefrontal cortex (PFC) has long been thought to subserve both working memory and "executive" function, but the mechanistic basis of their integrated function has remained poorly understood, often amounting to a homunculus. This paper reviews the progress in our lab and others pursuing a long-term research agenda to deconstruct this homunculus by elucidating the precise computational and neural mechanisms underlying these phenomena. We outline six key functional demands underlying working memory, and then describe the current state of our computational model of the PFC and associated systems in the basal ganglia (BG). The model, called PBWM (prefrontal-cortex, basal-ganglia working memory model), relies on actively maintained representations in the PFC, which are dynamically updated/gated by the BG. It is capable of developing human-like performance largely on its own by taking advantage of powerful reinforcement learning mechanisms, based on the midbrain dopaminergic system and its activation via the BG and amygdala. These learning mechanisms enable the model to learn to control both itself and other brain areas in a strategic, task-appropriate manner. The model can learn challenging working memory tasks, and has been corroborated by several important empirical studies.

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Section: Current Progress and Future Directionssupporting

confidence: 49%

Banishing the homunculus: Making working memory work

2006

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“…above/below) but not the concept of difference, which was nevertheless perceived and extracted by bees. Monkeys have been trained to switch between two concepts, sameness and difference, presented in a random succession [46]. Concept alternation was possible, because, in each trial, a contextual cue indicated which concept had to be applied.…”

Section: (A) Sameness/difference Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The experiments on primates reported above combined behavioural measurements in DMTS and DNMTS trials with electrophysiological recordings in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) [46,49]. PFC neurons were found which are concept-selective, i.e.…”

Section: Neurobiological Insights Into Conceptual Learning In Beesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Conceptual learning by miniature brains

2013

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Concepts act as a cornerstone of human cognition. Humans and non-human primates learn conceptual relationships such as 'same', 'different', 'larger than', 'better than', among others. In all cases, the relationships have to be encoded by the brain independently of the physical nature of objects linked by the relation. Consequently, concepts are associated with high levels of cognitive sophistication and are not expected in an insect brain. Yet, various works have shown that the miniature brain of honeybees rapidly learns conceptual relationships involving visual stimuli. Concepts such as 'same', 'different', 'above/below of' or 'left/right are well mastered by bees. We review here evidence about concept learning in honeybees and discuss both its potential adaptive advantage and its possible neural substrates. The results reviewed here challenge the traditional view attributing supremacy to larger brains when it comes to the elaboration of concepts and have wide implications for understanding how brains can form conceptual relations.

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“…For example, in the "cutting the cake" scenario, very different objects such as a plate, a tape measure, or a dental floss, when they are used as an Instrument of cutting, should access the same pattern of neuronal activity coding the requirement <the Instrument of the cutting action must have a sturdy sharp edge>. Interestingly, electrophysiological studies in non-human primates have already obtained some evidence that prefrontal neurons display such discrete pattern of response to categories of visual stimuli (Freedman et al, 2001(Freedman et al, , 2002(Freedman et al, , 2003 and match-mismatch relationships (Wallis et al, 2001;Wallis et al, 2003) that are defined by their functional relevance (for a review see Miller et al, 2002;Miller et al, 2003). …”

Section: Two Semantic Neurocognitive Mechanisms Of Comprehension: a Hmentioning

confidence: 99%

23 Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Human Comprehension

Sitnikova¹,

Holcomb²,

Kuperberg³

2008

Understanding Events

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This chapter begins with a discussion of evidence for distinctions between two semantic comprehension systems in the language domain: a system that maps the perceived information on graded semantic representations and a system that utilizes particular semantic requirements of verbs. It then reviews similar research using static and motion pictures. It argues that the two mechanisms of language comprehension might be analogous to the systems that use graded semantic representations and action-based requirements to make sense of the visual world. The experiments that are reviewed in this chapter examine questions of both how comprehenders understand relationships between the elements within individual events and how they understand the relationships between events. Experiments that have used event-related potentials (ERPs) are also highlighted.

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Single neurons in prefrontal cortex encode abstract rules

Cited by 914 publications

References 25 publications

Banishing the homunculus: Making working memory work

Banishing the homunculus: Making working memory work

Conceptual learning by miniature brains

23 Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Human Comprehension

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