Neural time-integration underlying higher cognitive function

描述（由申请人提供）：时间整合可能是大脑产生灵活和智能行为的关键步骤，这些行为脱离了感觉处理或运动执行的即时时间尺度。该研究项目旨在通过对灵长类动物背侧流和视觉运动处理的开创性研究，解开构成高级认知功能的神经计算。在心理物理学、神经生理学和计算的综合框架内，我们的目标是提出关于如何“读出”转瞬即逝的感觉信号以指导行为的精确问题，并得出跨越单个神经元、神经回路和心理计算水平的答案。这项工作致力于了解在各种心理健康和大脑衰老条件下恶化的基本机制。目的1。从刺激到决策的时间整合的精确表征，使用心理物理学期间的反向相关协议和跨MT和LIP的同时多神经元/多区域记录，并通过广义线性模型进行解释。没有实证研究通过直接测量来测试假设的MT信号的时间积分，我们将通过同时记录MT和LIP神经元的集合来进行直接测量。目标2。对这个（假定的）决策回路的因果询问，将上述MT-LIP框架扩展到包括一个区域的可逆失活，并辅以另一个区域的并发多神经元记录。将LIP与决策联系起来的证据几乎完全是相关的。我们建议对该区域进行失活，以测试其在证据积累中的因果或必要作用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Temporal integration may be the brain's key step in generating flexible and intelligent behaviors that are divorced from the immediate time scales of sensory processing or motor execution. This research program aims to unpack the neural computations that underlie higher cognitive function by building off seminal studies in the primate dorsal stream and visual motion processing. Within an integrated framework of psychophysics, neurophysiology, and computation, we aim to ask precise questions about how fleeting sensory signals are "read out" to guide behavior, and to arrive at answers that span the levels of single neurons, neural circuits, and mental computations. This work strives to understand the basic mechanisms that deteriorate in a variety of mental health and brain aging conditions. Aim 1. Precise characterization of temporal integration from stimulus to decision, using a reverse correlation protocol during psychophysics and simultaneous multiple-neuron / multiple-area recordings across MT and LIP, and interpreted via a generalized linear model. No empirical study has tested the hypothesized temporal integration of MT signals by LIP with direct measurement, which we will do by simultaneously recording from sets of MT and LIP neurons. Aim 2. Causal interrogation of this (putative) decision-making circuit, extending the MT-LIP framework described above to include reversible inactivations of one area, complemented by concurrent multiple-neuron recordings in the other area. The evidence linking LIP to decision-making has been almost entirely correlation. We propose to perform inactivations of the area to test for its causal or necessary role in the accumulation of evidence. Aim 3. Analysis of multiple stages of oculomotor decision-making, applying the multiple-neuron / multiple- area and inactivate-and-record approaches described in the aims above to LIP-FEF-PFC. Although the direct measurement of sensory signals in MT at the same time as LIP recording is likely to grant us significant new insights, the neural signals supporting motion discrimination almost certainly span a larger circuit with many sensory and cognitive stages. Here, we propose to apply the techniques described above to elucidate the relative roles of posterior parietal and prefrontal areas in decision-making.