Autonomous Encoding of Irrelevant Goals and Outcomes by Prefrontal Cortex Neurons
Autonomous Encoding of Irrelevant Goals and Outcomes by Prefrontal Cortex Neurons
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DOI：
10.1523/jneurosci.3228-13.2014
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发表时间：
2014-01-29
影响因子：
5.3
通讯作者：
Wise, Steven P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Genovesio, Aldo;Tsujimoto, Satoshi;Wise, Steven P.
两只恒河猴完成了一项距离辨别任务，要求它们报告一个红色正方形或一个蓝色圆圈是否出现在距离固定参考点较远的地方。因为每次试验都随机选择了一对新的距离，而且猴子没有机会纠正错误，所以前一次试验的信息与当前试验没有关联。然而，在目前的试验中，许多前额叶皮质神经元编码了先前试验的结果。一个较小的混合细胞群体编码了前一次试验的空间目标或所选刺激的特征，如颜色或形状。在当前试验中，先前结果和目标的编码开始于不同的时间，并且它是选择性的，因为前额叶细胞不编码来自先前试验的其他信息。对以前的目标和结果的监控通常有助于问题的解决，它可以支持探索性行为。目前的结果表明，即使在与手头的任务无关的情况下，这种监测也是自主的和选择性的。
Two rhesus monkeys performed a distance discrimination task in which they reported whether a red square or a blue circle had appeared farther from a fixed reference point. Because a new pair of distances was chosen randomly on each trial, and because the monkeys had no opportunity to correct errors, no information from the previous trial was relevant to a current one. Nevertheless, many prefrontal cortex neurons encoded the outcome of the previous trial on current trials. A smaller, intermingled population of cells encoded the spatial goal on the previous trial or the features of the chosen stimuli, such as color or shape. The coding of previous outcomes and goals began at various times during a current trial, and it was selective in that prefrontal cells did not encode other information from the previous trial. The monitoring of previous goals and outcomes often contributes to problem solving, and it can support exploratory behavior. The present results show that such monitoring occurs autonomously and selectively, even when irrelevant to the task at hand.