Neural Basis of Categories

描述(申请人提供)：通过抽象范畴和其他概括性原则从经验中提取意义的能力是认知的基础。它在自闭症和精神分裂症等神经精神疾病中受到干扰。在上一次资助期间，我们使用新的行为范式来确定前额叶皮质(PFC)类别的神经关联，PFC是大脑中对认知最核心的区域，与神经精神障碍有关。我们现在的目标是利用我们实验室在分类学习和行为猴子的多电极记录方面的专业知识来解决神经代表的一个基本问题：PFC神经元是认知通才还是专家？这个关键问题尚未得到解决，因为几乎所有的神经生理学家都在训练猴子解决单一的认知问题。我们将训练猴子进行多种分类区分，并使用48个微电极广泛观察PFC三个亚区(外侧、背侧和眼眶)的神经元活动。PFC函数的两大类理论做出了不同的预测。通才/适应性理论预测了许多神经元，每个神经元代表多个类别的区别。专家/地方主义理论预测，单个神经元专门用于每一种区别。现实可能介于两者之间。回答这些关于神经特异性和定位的基本问题，是我们如何得出我们目前对感觉和运动处理的理解的。我们的目标是为认知和对正常认知最核心的大脑区域提供这样的理解。因为分类是认知的基础，这个项目的数据有可能对广泛的行为和人类疾病产生影响。我们的长期目标是提供对这一关键认知功能的理解，并通过这样做打开一条通往药物和行为疗法的道路，这将缓解神经精神障碍。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to extract meaning from experience by abstracting categories and other generalized principles is a foundation of cognition. It is disrupted in neuropsychiatric diseases like autism and schizophrenia. During the last funding period, we used novel behavioral paradigms to identify neural correlates of categories in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the brain area most central to cognition and implicated in neuropsychiatric disorders. We now aim to use our lab's expertise in category learning and multiple electrode recording in behaving monkeys to address a basic question of neural representation: are PFC neurons cognitive generalists or specialists? This critical question is unresolved because virtually all neurophysiologists train monkeys on a single cognitive problem. We will train monkeys on multiple categorical distinctions and extensively survey neuron activity in three PFC subdivisions (lateral, dorsal, and orbital) using 48 microelectrodes. Two major classes of theories of PFC function make different predictions. Generalist/adaptive theories predict many neurons that each represent multiple category distinctions. Specialist/localist theories predict single neurons dedicated to each distinction. Reality may lie somewhere between. Answering such fundamental questions about neural specificity and localization is how we arrived at our current understanding of sensory and motor processing. Our goal is to provide such an understanding for cognition and the brain area most central to normal cognition. Because categorization is a foundation of cognition, data from this project has the potential to impact on a wide range of behavior and human disorders. Our long-term goal is to provide understanding of this critical cognitive function and by doing so open a path to drug and behavioral therapies that will alleviate neuropsychiatric disorders.