Single unit activity during a Go/NoGo task in the “prefrontal cortex” of pigeons

Kalt, Thomas; Diekamp, Bettina; Güntürkün, Onur

doi:10.1016/s0006-8993(99)01727-8

Cited by 55 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…A detailed analysis of the single cell recordings in the NCL, the avian ''prefrontal cortex'' , Mogensen & Divac, 1982Waldmann & Gü ntü rkü n, 1993), relating neural activity to individual behavior, revealed that many neurons showed increased activity during the delay preceding correct hit responses on Go trials, replicating previous findings on delay neurons in NCL (Diekamp et al, 2002;Kalt et al, 1999) and entopallium (Colombo et al, 2001; note that the entopallium was previously termed ectostriatum prior to the revision of the avian nomenclature, Reiner et al, 2004). However, the same neurons showed no or little such delay activity before correct response suppressions on No-Go trials.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Neural Correlates of a Default Response in a Delayed Go/No-Go Task

Kalenscher

Güntürkün

Calabrese

et al. 2005

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior

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Working memory, the ability to temporarily retain task-relevant information across a delay, is frequently investigated using delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) or delayed Go/No-Go tasks (DGNG). In DMTS tasks, sample cues instruct the animal which type of response has to be executed at the end of a delay. Typically, performance decreases with increasing delay duration, indicating that working memory fades across a delay. However, no such performance decrease has been found when the sample cues exist of present vs. absent stimuli, suggesting that pigeons do not rely on working memory, but seem to respond by default in those trials. We trained 3 pigeons in a DGNG task and found a similar default response pattern: The diverging slopes of the retention functions on correct Go and No-Go trials suggested that pigeons by default omitted their response following No-Go stimuli, but actively retained task-relevant information across the delay for successful responses on Go trials. We conducted single-cell recordings in the avian nidopallium caudolaterale, a structure comparable to the mammalian prefrontal cortex. On Go trials, many neurons displayed sustained elevated activity during the delay preceding the response, replicating previous findings and suggesting that task-relevant information was neurally represented and maintained across the delay. However, the same units did not show enhanced delay activity preceding correct response suppressions in No-Go trials. This activation-inactivation pattern presumably constitutes a neural correlate of the default response strategy observed in the DGNG task.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Neural Correlates of a Default Response in a Delayed Go/No-Go Task

Kalenscher

Güntürkün

Calabrese

et al. 2005

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior

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“…Firing patterns of these neurons were clearly related to the success rate of maintaining the relevant event to guide the subsequent choice behavior. Similarly, Kalt et al [23] had shown that the ability of NCL-neurons to differentiate between the Goand the No-Go-stimulus correlates with the overall discrimination performance of the animal. Thus, delay units in the avian NCL show the same functional characteristics as those in primates.…”

Section: The Cellular Machinery Of Working Memory In Mammals and Birdsmentioning

confidence: 86%

Avian and mammalian “prefrontal cortices”: Limited degrees of freedom in the evolution of the neural mechanisms of goal-state maintenance

Güntürkün

2005

Brain Research Bulletin

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Is it possible to produce the same cognitive function with different brain organizations? This question is approached for working memory, a cognitive entity that is equally organized in birds and mammals. The critical forebrain structure for working memory is the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) in birds and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in mammals. Although both structures share a large number of neural architectural features, they are probably not homologous but represent a remarkable case of convergent evolution. In reviewing the neuronal mechanisms for working memory in birds and mammals it becomes apparent that the similarities of NCL and PFC extend from the neuronal activation patterns during memory tasks down to the biophysical mechanisms of synaptic currents. Both in mammals and birds, dopamine acts via D1-receptors to tune preactivated neurons into sustained high-frequency patterns with which goal states can be held over time until an appropriate response can be generated. The degrees of freedom to create different neural architectures to solve the problem of 'stimulus maintenance' seem to be very small.

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“…Neuroanatomical studies showed the NCL to receive multimodal input from all secondary sensory areas of the forebrain (Leutgeb, Husband, Riters, Shimizu, & Bingman, 1996), to project to telencephalic motor output structures as well as to the basal ganglia (Kröner and Güntürkün, 1999), to be innervated by dopaminergic fibers from midbrain cell groups A8 -A10 (Metzger, Jiang, Wang, & Braun, 1996), and to be characterized by a high density of dopamine D 1 receptors (Schnabel et al, 1997). Physiological studies demonstrated that single units in the NCL code for the upcoming reward (Kalt, Diekamp, & Güntürkün, 1999), bridge the delay between stimulus and response by high sustained activity levels (Diekamp, Kalt, & Güntürkün, 2002), and code for the subjective reward value of a reinforcer (Kalenscher et al, 2005). Neurochemical analyses showed that relative (Divac, Mogensen, & Björklund, 1985) and absolute concentrations of catecholamines (Karakuyu, Diekamp, & Güntürkün, 2003) as well as the relation of different dopamine metabolites (Bast, Diekamp, Thiel, Schwarting, & Güntürkün, 2002) matched the data from the mammalian PFC.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Out of Context: NMDA Receptor Antagonism in the Avian 'Prefrontal Cortex' Impairs Context Processing in a Conditional Discrimination Task.

Lissek¹,

Güntürkün²

2005

Behavioral Neuroscience

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Processing of context information is implicated in prefrontal functions as response selection or attention. N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors in the mammalian prefrontal cortex (PFC) and in the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) of birds, the avian functional equivalent of the PFC, are involved in learning, which also requires processing of context. The authors investigated the role of NMDA receptors in the pigeon (Columba livia) NCL for context processing and response selection in a simultaneous-matchingto-sample task with 2 trial types, requiring either processing of context information, delivered by a conditional stimulus (context dependent), or only recall of a stimulus-response association (fixed response). The competitive NMDA antagonist DL-2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid impaired performance only in context-dependent trials. Therefore, NMDA receptors in the avian PFC participate in response selection requiring context processing rather than in response selection per se.

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Single unit activity during a Go/NoGo task in the “prefrontal cortex” of pigeons

Cited by 55 publications

References 54 publications

Neural Correlates of a Default Response in a Delayed Go/No-Go Task

Neural Correlates of a Default Response in a Delayed Go/No-Go Task

Avian and mammalian “prefrontal cortices”: Limited degrees of freedom in the evolution of the neural mechanisms of goal-state maintenance

Out of Context: NMDA Receptor Antagonism in the Avian 'Prefrontal Cortex' Impairs Context Processing in a Conditional Discrimination Task.

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