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Rogers K, Gold JI, Ding L. The subthalamic nucleus contributes causally to perceptual decision-making in monkeys. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.04.09.588715. [PMID: 38645039 PMCID: PMC11030388 DOI: 10.1101/2024.04.09.588715] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/23/2024]
Abstract
The subthalamic nucleus (STN) plays critical roles in the motor and cognitive function of the basal ganglia (BG), but the exact nature of these roles is not fully understood, especially in the context of decision-making based on uncertain evidence. Guided by theoretical predictions of specific STN contributions, we used single-unit recording and electrical microstimulation in the STN of healthy monkeys to assess its causal, computational roles in visual-saccadic decisions based on noisy evidence. The recordings identified subpopulations of STN neurons with distinct task-related activity patterns that related to different theoretically predicted functions. Microstimulation caused changes in behavioral choices and response times that reflected multiple contributions to an "accumulate-to-bound"-like decision process, including modulation of decision bounds and evidence accumulation, and to non-perceptual processes. These results provide new insights into the multiple ways that the STN can support higher brain function.
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2
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Gupta D, Kopec CD, Bondy AG, Luo TZ, Elliott VA, Brody CD. A multi-region recurrent circuit for evidence accumulation in rats. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.07.08.602544. [PMID: 39026895 PMCID: PMC11257434 DOI: 10.1101/2024.07.08.602544] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/20/2024]
Abstract
Decision-making based on noisy evidence requires accumulating evidence and categorizing it to form a choice. Here we evaluate a proposed feedforward and modular mapping of this process in rats: evidence accumulated in anterodorsal striatum (ADS) is categorized in prefrontal cortex (frontal orienting fields, FOF). Contrary to this, we show that both regions appear to be indistinguishable in their encoding/decoding of accumulator value and communicate this information bidirectionally. Consistent with a role for FOF in accumulation, silencing FOF to ADS projections impacted behavior throughout the accumulation period, even while nonselective FOF silencing did not. We synthesize these findings into a multi-region recurrent neural network trained with a novel approach. In-silico experiments reveal that multiple scales of recurrence in the cortico-striatal circuit rescue computation upon nonselective FOF perturbations. These results suggest that ADS and FOF accumulate evidence in a recurrent and distributed manner, yielding redundant representations and robustness to certain perturbations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diksha Gupta
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA
- Present address: Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, University College London, London, UK
| | - Charles D. Kopec
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA
| | - Adrian G. Bondy
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA
| | - Thomas Z. Luo
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA
| | - Verity A. Elliott
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA
| | - Carlos D. Brody
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA
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Walsh K, McGovern DP, Dully J, Kelly SP, O'Connell RG. Prior probability cues bias sensory encoding with increasing task exposure. eLife 2024; 12:RP91135. [PMID: 38564237 PMCID: PMC10987094 DOI: 10.7554/elife.91135] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/04/2024] Open
Abstract
When observers have prior knowledge about the likely outcome of their perceptual decisions, they exhibit robust behavioural biases in reaction time and choice accuracy. Computational modelling typically attributes these effects to strategic adjustments in the criterion amount of evidence required to commit to a choice alternative - usually implemented by a starting point shift - but recent work suggests that expectations may also fundamentally bias the encoding of the sensory evidence itself. Here, we recorded neural activity with EEG while participants performed a contrast discrimination task with valid, invalid, or neutral probabilistic cues across multiple testing sessions. We measured sensory evidence encoding via contrast-dependent steady-state visual-evoked potentials (SSVEP), while a read-out of criterion adjustments was provided by effector-selective mu-beta band activity over motor cortex. In keeping with prior modelling and neural recording studies, cues evoked substantial biases in motor preparation consistent with criterion adjustments, but we additionally found that the cues produced a significant modulation of the SSVEP during evidence presentation. While motor preparation adjustments were observed in the earliest trials, the sensory-level effects only emerged with extended task exposure. Our results suggest that, in addition to strategic adjustments to the decision process, probabilistic information can also induce subtle biases in the encoding of the evidence itself.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kevin Walsh
- School of Psychological Sciences, Monash UniversityMelbourneAustralia
| | | | - Jessica Dully
- Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Simon P Kelly
- School of Electrical Engineering, University College DublinDublinIreland
- Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College DublinDublinIreland
| | - Redmond G O'Connell
- Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College DublinDublinIreland
- School of Psychology, Trinity College DublinDublinIreland
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4
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Kumano H, Uka T. Employment of time-varying sensory evidence to test the mechanisms underlying flexible decision-making. Neuroreport 2024; 35:107-114. [PMID: 38064356 PMCID: PMC10766094 DOI: 10.1097/wnr.0000000000001980] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2023] [Accepted: 11/11/2023] [Indexed: 01/06/2024]
Abstract
To make flexible decisions in dynamic environments, the brain must integrate behaviorally relevant information while simultaneously discarding irrelevant information. This study aimed to investigate the mechanisms responsible for discarding irrelevant information during context-dependent decision-making. We trained two macaque monkeys to switch between direction and depth discrimination tasks in successive trials. During decision-making, the strength of the motion or depth signal changes transiently at various times, introducing a brief pulse. We assessed the effects of pulse on behavioral choices. Consistent with previous findings, early relevant pulses, such as motion pulses during direction discrimination, had a significantly larger effect compared to late pulses. Critically, the effects of irrelevant pulses, such as motion pulses during depth discrimination, exhibited an initial minimal effect, followed by an increase and subsequent decrease as a function of pulse timing. Gating mechanisms alone, aimed at discarding irrelevant information, did not account for the observed time course of pulse effects. Instead, the observed increase in the effects of irrelevant pulses with time suggested the involvement of a leaky integration mechanism. The results suggested that the brain controls the amount of disposal in accumulating sensory evidence during flexible decision-making.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hironori Kumano
- Department of Integrative Physiology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Yamanashi, Yamanashi, Japan
| | - Takanori Uka
- Department of Integrative Physiology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Yamanashi, Yamanashi, Japan
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5
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Viswanathan P, Stein AM, Nieder A. Sequential neuronal processing of number values, abstract decision, and action in the primate prefrontal cortex. PLoS Biol 2024; 22:e3002520. [PMID: 38364194 PMCID: PMC10871863 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002520] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2023] [Accepted: 01/25/2024] [Indexed: 02/18/2024] Open
Abstract
Decision-making requires processing of sensory information, comparing the gathered evidence to make a judgment, and performing the action to communicate it. How neuronal representations transform during this cascade of representations remains a matter of debate. Here, we studied the succession of neuronal representations in the primate prefrontal cortex (PFC). We trained monkeys to judge whether a pair of sequentially presented displays had the same number of items. We used a combination of single neuron and population-level analyses and discovered a sequential transformation of represented information with trial progression. While numerical values were initially represented with high precision and in conjunction with detailed information such as order, the decision was encoded in a low-dimensional subspace of neural activity. This decision encoding was invariant to both retrospective numerical values and prospective motor plans, representing only the binary judgment of "same number" versus "different number," thus facilitating the generalization of decisions to novel number pairs. We conclude that this transformation of neuronal codes within the prefrontal cortex supports cognitive flexibility and generalizability of decisions to new conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pooja Viswanathan
- Animal Physiology, Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany
| | - Anna M. Stein
- Animal Physiology, Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany
| | - Andreas Nieder
- Animal Physiology, Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany
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6
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Lee DH, Kim JS, Ryun S, Chung CK. Discrete tactile feature comparison subprocess in human brain during a decision-making process. Cortex 2024; 171:383-396. [PMID: 38101274 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.11.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/18/2023] [Revised: 10/03/2023] [Accepted: 11/02/2023] [Indexed: 12/17/2023]
Abstract
From sensory input to motor action, encoded sensory features flow sequentially along cortical networks for decision-making. Despite numerous studies probing the decision-making process, the subprocess that compares encoded sensory features before making a decision has not been fully elucidated in humans. In this study, we investigated sensory feature comparison by presenting two different tasks (a discrimination task, in which participants made decisions by comparing two sequential tactile stimuli; and a detection task, in which participants responded to the second tactile stimulus in two sequential stimuli) to epilepsy patients while recording electrocorticography (ECoG). By comparing tactile-specific gamma band (30-200 Hz) power between the two tasks, the decision-making process was divided into three subprocesses-categorization, comparison, and decision-consistent with a previous study (Heekeren et al., 2004). These subprocesses occurred sequentially in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, premotor cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, and parietal lobe. Gamma power showed two different patterns of correlation with response time. In the inferior parietal lobule (IPL), there was a negative correlation. This means that as gamma power increased, response time decreased. In the secondary somatosensory cortex (S2), there was a positive correlation. Here, as gamma power increased, response time also increased. These results indicate that the IPL and S2 encode tactile feature comparison differently. Our connectivity analysis showed that the S2 transmitted tactile information to the IPL. Our findings suggest that multiple areas in the parietal lobe encode sensory feature comparison differently before making a decision.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dong Hyeok Lee
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - June Sic Kim
- The Research Institute of Basic Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Seokyun Ryun
- Neuroscience Research Institute, Medical Research Center, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Chun Kee Chung
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Neuroscience Research Institute, Medical Research Center, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Department of Neurosurgery, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
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7
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Fan Y, Doi T, Gold JI, Ding L. Neural Representations of Post-Decision Accuracy and Reward Expectation in the Caudate Nucleus and Frontal Eye Field. J Neurosci 2024; 44:e0902232023. [PMID: 37963761 PMCID: PMC10860634 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0902-23.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2023] [Revised: 10/11/2023] [Accepted: 10/14/2023] [Indexed: 11/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Performance monitoring that supports ongoing behavioral adjustments is often examined in the context of either choice confidence for perceptual decisions (i.e., "did I get it right?") or reward expectation for reward-based decisions (i.e., "what reward will I receive?"). However, our understanding of how the brain encodes these distinct evaluative signals remains limited because they are easily conflated, particularly in commonly used two-alternative tasks with symmetric rewards for correct choices. Previously we used a motion-discrimination task with asymmetric rewards to identify neural substrates of forming reward-biased perceptual decisions in the caudate nucleus (part of the striatum in the basal ganglia) and the frontal eye field (FEF, in prefrontal cortex). Here we leveraged this task design to partially decouple estimates of accuracy and reward expectation and examine their impacts on subsequent decisions and their representations in those two brain areas. We identified distinguishable representations of these two evaluative signals in individual caudate and FEF neurons, with regional differences in their distribution patterns and time courses. We observed that well-trained monkeys (both sexes) used both evaluative signals, infrequently but consistently, to adjust their subsequent decisions. We found further that these behavioral adjustments had reliable relationships with the neural representations of both evaluative signals in caudate, but not FEF. These results suggest that the cortico-striatal decision network may use diverse evaluative signals to monitor and adjust decision-making behaviors, adding to our understanding of the different roles that the FEF and caudate nucleus play in a diversity of decision-related computations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yunshu Fan
- Neuroscience Graduate Group, Departments of Neuroscience
| | - Takahiro Doi
- Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
| | - Joshua I Gold
- Neuroscience Graduate Group, Departments of Neuroscience
| | - Long Ding
- Neuroscience Graduate Group, Departments of Neuroscience
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8
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Marshall TR, Ruesseler M, Hunt LT, O’Reilly JX. The representation of priors and decisions in the human parietal cortex. PLoS Biol 2024; 22:e3002383. [PMID: 38285671 PMCID: PMC10824454 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002383] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/07/2022] [Accepted: 12/11/2023] [Indexed: 01/31/2024] Open
Abstract
Animals actively sample their environment through orienting actions such as saccadic eye movements. Saccadic targets are selected based both on sensory evidence immediately preceding the saccade, and a "salience map" or prior built-up over multiple saccades. In the primate cortex, the selection of each individual saccade depends on competition between target-selective cells that ramp up their firing rate to saccade release. However, it is less clear how a cross-saccade prior might be implemented, either in neural firing or through an activity-silent mechanism such as modification of synaptic weights on sensory inputs. Here, we present evidence from magnetoencephalography for 2 distinct processes underlying the selection of the current saccade, and the representation of the prior, in human parietal cortex. While the classic ramping decision process for each saccade was reflected in neural firing rates (measured in the event-related field), a prior built-up over multiple saccades was implemented via modulation of the gain on sensory inputs from the preferred target, as evidenced by rapid frequency tagging. A cascade of computations over time (initial representation of the prior, followed by evidence accumulation and then an integration of prior and evidence) provides a mechanism by which a salience map may be built up across saccades in parietal cortex. It also provides insight into the apparent contradiction that inactivation of parietal cortex has been shown not to affect performance on single-trials, despite the presence of clear evidence accumulation signals in this region.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tom R. Marshall
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Maria Ruesseler
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Laurence T. Hunt
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Jill X. O’Reilly
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Nuffield Department for Clinical Neurosciences, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
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9
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Valdebenito-Oyarzo G, Martínez-Molina MP, Soto-Icaza P, Zamorano F, Figueroa-Vargas A, Larraín-Valenzuela J, Stecher X, Salinas C, Bastin J, Valero-Cabré A, Polania R, Billeke P. The parietal cortex has a causal role in ambiguity computations in humans. PLoS Biol 2024; 22:e3002452. [PMID: 38198502 PMCID: PMC10824459 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002452] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2023] [Revised: 01/23/2024] [Accepted: 11/28/2023] [Indexed: 01/12/2024] Open
Abstract
Humans often face the challenge of making decisions between ambiguous options. The level of ambiguity in decision-making has been linked to activity in the parietal cortex, but its exact computational role remains elusive. To test the hypothesis that the parietal cortex plays a causal role in computing ambiguous probabilities, we conducted consecutive fMRI and TMS-EEG studies. We found that participants assigned unknown probabilities to objective probabilities, elevating the uncertainty of their decisions. Parietal cortex activity correlated with the objective degree of ambiguity and with a process that underestimates the uncertainty during decision-making. Conversely, the midcingulate cortex (MCC) encodes prediction errors and increases its connectivity with the parietal cortex during outcome processing. Disruption of the parietal activity increased the uncertainty evaluation of the options, decreasing cingulate cortex oscillations during outcome evaluation and lateral frontal oscillations related to value ambiguous probability. These results provide evidence for a causal role of the parietal cortex in computing uncertainty during ambiguous decisions made by humans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriela Valdebenito-Oyarzo
- Laboratorio de Neurociencia Social y Neuromodulación, Centro de Investigación en Complejidad Social, (neuroCICS), Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile
| | - María Paz Martínez-Molina
- Laboratorio de Neurociencia Social y Neuromodulación, Centro de Investigación en Complejidad Social, (neuroCICS), Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile
| | - Patricia Soto-Icaza
- Laboratorio de Neurociencia Social y Neuromodulación, Centro de Investigación en Complejidad Social, (neuroCICS), Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile
| | - Francisco Zamorano
- Unidad de Neuroimágenes Cuantitativas avanzadas (UNICA), Departamento de Imágenes, Clínica Alemana de Santiago, Santiago, Chile
- Facultad de Ciencias para el Cuidado de la Salud, Campus Los Leones, Universidad San Sebastián, Santiago, Chile
| | - Alejandra Figueroa-Vargas
- Laboratorio de Neurociencia Social y Neuromodulación, Centro de Investigación en Complejidad Social, (neuroCICS), Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile
| | - Josefina Larraín-Valenzuela
- Laboratorio de Neurociencia Social y Neuromodulación, Centro de Investigación en Complejidad Social, (neuroCICS), Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile
| | - Ximena Stecher
- Unidad de Neuroimágenes Cuantitativas avanzadas (UNICA), Departamento de Imágenes, Clínica Alemana de Santiago, Santiago, Chile
| | - César Salinas
- Unidad de Neuroimágenes Cuantitativas avanzadas (UNICA), Departamento de Imágenes, Clínica Alemana de Santiago, Santiago, Chile
| | - Julien Bastin
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Inserm, U1216, Grenoble Institut Neurosciences, Grenoble, France
| | - Antoni Valero-Cabré
- Causal Dynamics, Plasticity and Rehabilitation Group, FRONTLAB team, Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière (ICM), CNRS UMR 7225, INSERM U 1127 and Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
- Cognitive Neuroscience and Information Technology Research Program, Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Barcelona, Spain
- Laboratory for Cerebral Dynamics Plasticity and Rehabilitation, Boston University, School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Rafael Polania
- Decision Neuroscience Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Pablo Billeke
- Laboratorio de Neurociencia Social y Neuromodulación, Centro de Investigación en Complejidad Social, (neuroCICS), Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile
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10
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Nieder A. Convergent Circuit Computation for Categorization in the Brains of Primates and Songbirds. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol 2023; 15:a041526. [PMID: 38040453 PMCID: PMC10691494 DOI: 10.1101/cshperspect.a041526] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/03/2023]
Abstract
Categorization is crucial for behavioral flexibility because it enables animals to group stimuli into meaningful classes that can easily be generalized to new circumstances. A most abstract quantitative category is set size, the number of elements in a set. This review explores how categorical number representations are realized by the operations of excitatory and inhibitory neurons in associative telencephalic microcircuits in primates and songbirds. Despite the independent evolution of the primate prefrontal cortex and the avian nidopallium caudolaterale, the neuronal computations of these associative pallial circuits show surprising correspondence. Comparing cellular functions in distantly related taxa can inform about the evolutionary principles of circuit computations for cognition in distinctly but convergently realized brain structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andreas Nieder
- Animal Physiology Unit, Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
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11
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Mathar D, Wiebe A, Tuzsus D, Knauth K, Peters J. Erotic cue exposure increases physiological arousal, biases choices toward immediate rewards, and attenuates model-based reinforcement learning. Psychophysiology 2023; 60:e14381. [PMID: 37435973 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14381] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2022] [Revised: 04/21/2023] [Accepted: 06/17/2023] [Indexed: 07/13/2023]
Abstract
Computational psychiatry focuses on identifying core cognitive processes that appear altered across distinct psychiatric disorders. Temporal discounting of future rewards and model-based control during reinforcement learning have proven as two promising candidates. Despite its trait-like stability, temporal discounting may be at least partly under contextual control. Highly arousing cues were shown to increase discounting, although evidence to date remains somewhat mixed. Whether model-based reinforcement learning is similarly affected by arousing cues remains unclear. Here, we tested cue-reactivity effects (erotic pictures) on subsequent temporal discounting and model-based reinforcement learning in a within-subjects design in n = 39 healthy heterosexual male participants. Self-reported and physiological arousal (cardiac activity and pupil dilation) were assessed before and during cue exposure. Arousal was increased during exposure of erotic versus neutral cues both on the subjective and autonomic level. Erotic cue exposure increased discounting as reflected by more impatient choices. Hierarchical drift diffusion modeling (DDM) linked increased discounting to a shift in the starting point bias of evidence accumulation toward immediate options. Model-based control during reinforcement learning was reduced following erotic cues according to model-agnostic analysis. Notably, DDM linked this effect to attenuated forgetting rates of unchosen options, leaving the model-based control parameter unchanged. Our findings replicate previous work on cue-reactivity effects in temporal discounting and for the first time show similar effects in model-based reinforcement learning in a heterosexual male sample. This highlights how environmental cues can impact core human decision processes and reveal that comprehensive modeling approaches can yield novel insights in reward-based decision processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Mathar
- Department of Psychology, Biological Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
| | - Annika Wiebe
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | - Deniz Tuzsus
- Department of Psychology, Biological Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
| | - Kilian Knauth
- Department of Psychology, Biological Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
| | - Jan Peters
- Department of Psychology, Biological Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
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12
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Shams M, Thier P, Lomber SG, Merrikhi Y. Resilience of FEF neuronal saccade code to V4 perturbations. J Neurophysiol 2023; 130:1243-1251. [PMID: 37850785 PMCID: PMC10994545 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00056.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2023] [Revised: 09/06/2023] [Accepted: 10/13/2023] [Indexed: 10/19/2023] Open
Abstract
The frontal eye field (FEF) plays a key role in initiating rapid eye movements known as saccades. Accumulation models have been proposed to explain the dynamic of these neurons and how they may enable the initiation of saccades. To update the scope of the viability of this model, we studied single neurons recorded from the FEF of two rhesus monkeys while they performed a memory-guided saccade task. We evaluated the degree to which each type of FEF neuron complied with these models by quantifying how precisely their discharge predicted an imminent saccade based on their immediate presaccadic activity. We found that decoders trained on single neurons with a stronger motor component performed better than decoders trained on neurons with a stronger visual component in predicting the saccade. Importantly, despite a dramatic effect on the reaction times, the perturbations delivered to the FEF neurons via area V4 did not impact their saccade predictability. Our results demonstrate a high degree of resilience of the FEF neuronal presaccadic discharge patterns, fulfilling the predictions of accumulation models.NEW & NOTEWORTHY We studied neurons in the brain's frontal eye field (FEF) to understand how these neurons predict swift eye shifts called saccades. We found that neurons with more movement-related activity were better at predicting saccades than those with sensory-related activity. Interestingly, electrical disruptions of this region strongly impacted saccade onset times but did not affect the individual neuron's saccade predictability, consistent with models suggesting that a specific threshold in neural activity triggers the saccade.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammad Shams
- Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Peter Thier
- Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Stephen G Lomber
- Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Yaser Merrikhi
- Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
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13
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Bao C, Zhu X, Mōller-Mara J, Li J, Dubroqua S, Erlich JC. The rat frontal orienting field dynamically encodes value for economic decisions under risk. Nat Neurosci 2023; 26:1942-1952. [PMID: 37857772 PMCID: PMC10620098 DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01461-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2022] [Accepted: 09/11/2023] [Indexed: 10/21/2023]
Abstract
Frontal and parietal cortex are implicated in economic decision-making, but their causal roles are untested. Here we silenced the frontal orienting field (FOF) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) while rats chose between a cued lottery and a small stable surebet. PPC inactivations produced minimal short-lived effects. FOF inactivations reliably reduced lottery choices. A mixed-agent model of choice indicated that silencing the FOF caused a change in the curvature of the rats' utility function (U = Vρ). Consistent with this finding, single-neuron and population analyses of neural activity confirmed that the FOF encodes the lottery value on each trial. A dynamical model, which accounts for electrophysiological and silencing results, suggests that the FOF represents the current lottery value to compare against the remembered surebet value. These results demonstrate that the FOF is a critical node in the neural circuit for the dynamic representation of action values for choice under risk.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chaofei Bao
- NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
- Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, University College London, London, UK
| | - Xiaoyue Zhu
- NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Joshua Mōller-Mara
- NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Jingjie Li
- NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
- Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, University College London, London, UK
| | - Sylvain Dubroqua
- NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Jeffrey C Erlich
- NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China.
- NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China.
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
- Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, University College London, London, UK.
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14
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Imani E, Radkani S, Hashemi A, Harati A, Pourreza H, Moazami Goudarzi M. Distributed Coding of Evidence Accumulation across the Mouse Brain Using Microcircuits with a Diversity of Timescales. eNeuro 2023; 10:ENEURO.0282-23.2023. [PMID: 37863657 PMCID: PMC10626503 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0282-23.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2023] [Revised: 09/11/2023] [Accepted: 09/25/2023] [Indexed: 10/22/2023] Open
Abstract
The gradual accumulation of noisy evidence for or against options is the main step in the perceptual decision-making process. Using brain-wide electrophysiological recording in mice (Steinmetz et al., 2019), we examined neural correlates of evidence accumulation across brain areas. We demonstrated that the neurons with drift-diffusion model (DDM)-like firing rate activity (i.e., evidence-sensitive ramping firing rate) were distributed across the brain. Exploring the underlying neural mechanism of evidence accumulation for the DDM-like neurons revealed different accumulation mechanisms (i.e., single and race) both within and across the brain areas. Our findings support the hypothesis that evidence accumulation is happening through multiple integration mechanisms in the brain. We further explored the timescale of the integration process in the single and race accumulator models. The results demonstrated that the accumulator microcircuits within each brain area had distinct properties in terms of their integration timescale, which were organized hierarchically across the brain. These findings support the existence of evidence accumulation over multiple timescales. Besides the variability of integration timescale across the brain, a heterogeneity of timescales was observed within each brain area as well. We demonstrated that this variability reflected the diversity of microcircuit parameters, such that accumulators with longer integration timescales had higher recurrent excitation strength.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elaheh Imani
- Department of Computer Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, 9177948974, Iran
| | - Setayesh Radkani
- Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
| | | | - Ahad Harati
- Department of Computer Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, 9177948974, Iran
| | - Hamidreza Pourreza
- Department of Computer Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, 9177948974, Iran
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15
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Zeng Z, Zhang C, Gu Y. Visuo-vestibular heading perception: a model system to study multi-sensory decision making. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2023; 378:20220334. [PMID: 37545303 PMCID: PMC10404926 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0334] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2022] [Accepted: 05/15/2023] [Indexed: 08/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Integrating noisy signals across time as well as sensory modalities, a process named multi-sensory decision making (MSDM), is an essential strategy for making more accurate and sensitive decisions in complex environments. Although this field is just emerging, recent extraordinary works from different perspectives, including computational theory, psychophysical behaviour and neurophysiology, begin to shed new light onto MSDM. In the current review, we focus on MSDM by using a model system of visuo-vestibular heading. Combining well-controlled behavioural paradigms on virtual-reality systems, single-unit recordings, causal manipulations and computational theory based on spiking activity, recent progress reveals that vestibular signals contain complex temporal dynamics in many brain regions, including unisensory, multi-sensory and sensory-motor association areas. This challenges the brain for cue integration across time and sensory modality such as optic flow which mainly contains a motion velocity signal. In addition, new evidence from the higher-level decision-related areas, mostly in the posterior and frontal/prefrontal regions, helps revise our conventional thought on how signals from different sensory modalities may be processed, converged, and moment-by-moment accumulated through neural circuits for forming a unified, optimal perceptual decision. This article is part of the theme issue 'Decision and control processes in multisensory perception'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhao Zeng
- CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200031 Shanghai, People's Republic of China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049 Beijing, People's Republic of China
| | - Ce Zhang
- CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200031 Shanghai, People's Republic of China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049 Beijing, People's Republic of China
| | - Yong Gu
- CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200031 Shanghai, People's Republic of China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049 Beijing, People's Republic of China
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16
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Ding L. Contributions of the Basal Ganglia to Visual Perceptual Decisions. Annu Rev Vis Sci 2023; 9:385-407. [PMID: 37713277 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-vision-111022-123804] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/17/2023]
Abstract
The basal ganglia (BG) make up a prominent nexus between visual and motor-related brain regions. In contrast to the BG's well-established roles in movement control and value-based decision making, their contributions to the transformation of visual input into an action remain unclear, especially in the context of perceptual decisions based on uncertain visual evidence. This article reviews recent progress in our understanding of the BG's contributions to the formation, evaluation, and adjustment of such decisions. From theoretical and experimental perspectives, the review focuses on four key stations in the BG network, namely, the striatum, pallidum, subthalamic nucleus, and midbrain dopamine neurons, which can have different roles and together support the decision process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Long Ding
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA;
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17
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Fennell A, Ratcliff R. A spatially continuous diffusion model of visual working memory. Cogn Psychol 2023; 145:101595. [PMID: 37659278 PMCID: PMC10546276 DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101595] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2023] [Revised: 07/28/2023] [Accepted: 08/02/2023] [Indexed: 09/04/2023]
Abstract
We present results from five visual working memory (VWM) experiments in which participants were briefly shown between 2 and 6 colored squares. They were then cued to recall the color of one of the squares and they responded by choosing the color on a continuous color wheel. The experiments provided response proportions and response time (RT) measures as a function of angle for the choices. Current VWM models for this task include discrete models that assume an item is either within working memory or not and resource models that assume that memory strength varies as a function of the number of items. Because these models do not include processes that allow them to account for RT data, we implemented them within the spatially continuous diffusion model (SCDM, Ratcliff, 2018) and use the experimental data to evaluate these combined models. In the SCDM, evidence retrieved from memory is represented as a spatially continuous normal distribution and this drives the decision process until a criterion (represented as a 1-D line) is reached, which produces a decision. Noise in the accumulation process is represented by continuous Gaussian process noise over spatial position. The models that fit best from the discrete and resource-based classes converged on a common model that had a guessing component and that allowed the height of the normal memory-strength distribution to vary with number of items. The guessing component was implemented as a regular decision process driven by a flat evidence distribution, a zero-drift process. The combination of choice and RT data allows models that were not identifiable based on choice data alone to be discriminated.
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18
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Stine GM, Trautmann EM, Jeurissen D, Shadlen MN. A neural mechanism for terminating decisions. Neuron 2023; 111:2601-2613.e5. [PMID: 37352857 PMCID: PMC10565788 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.05.028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2022] [Revised: 03/20/2023] [Accepted: 05/30/2023] [Indexed: 06/25/2023]
Abstract
The brain makes decisions by accumulating evidence until there is enough to stop and choose. Neural mechanisms of evidence accumulation are established in association cortex, but the site and mechanism of termination are unknown. Here, we show that the superior colliculus (SC) plays a causal role in terminating decisions, and we provide evidence for a mechanism by which this occurs. We recorded simultaneously from neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) and SC while monkeys made perceptual decisions. Despite similar trial-averaged activity, we found distinct single-trial dynamics in the two areas: LIP displayed drift-diffusion dynamics and SC displayed bursting dynamics. We hypothesized that the bursts manifest a threshold mechanism applied to signals represented in LIP to terminate the decision. Consistent with this hypothesis, SC inactivation produced behavioral effects diagnostic of an impaired threshold sensor and prolonged the buildup of activity in LIP. The results reveal the transformation from deliberation to commitment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriel M Stine
- Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Eric M Trautmann
- Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Grossman Center for the Statistics of Mind, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Danique Jeurissen
- Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Michael N Shadlen
- Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
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19
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Zhou Y, Zhu O, Freedman DJ. Posterior Parietal Cortex Plays a Causal Role in Abstract Memory-Based Visual Categorical Decisions. J Neurosci 2023; 43:4315-4328. [PMID: 37137703 PMCID: PMC10255012 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2241-22.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2022] [Revised: 04/13/2023] [Accepted: 04/17/2023] [Indexed: 05/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Neural activity in the lateral intraparietal cortex (LIP) correlates with both sensory evaluation and motor planning underlying visuomotor decisions. We previously showed that LIP plays a causal role in visually-based perceptual and categorical decisions, and preferentially contributes to evaluating sensory stimuli over motor planning. In that study, however, monkeys reported their decisions with a saccade to a colored target associated with the correct motion category or direction. Since LIP is known to play a role in saccade planning, it remains unclear whether LIP's causal role in such decisions extend to decision-making tasks which do not involve saccades. Here, we employed reversible pharmacological inactivation of LIP neural activity while two male monkeys performed delayed match to category (DMC) and delayed match to sample (DMS) tasks. In both tasks, monkeys needed to maintain gaze fixation throughout the trial and report whether a test stimulus was a categorical match or nonmatch to the previous sample stimulus by releasing a touch bar. LIP inactivation impaired monkeys' behavioral performance in both tasks, with deficits in both accuracy and reaction time (RT). Furthermore, we recorded LIP neural activity in the DMC task targeting the same cortical locations as in the inactivation experiments. We found significant neural encoding of the sample category, which was correlated with monkeys' categorical decisions in the DMC task. Taken together, our results demonstrate that LIP plays a generalized role in visual categorical decisions independent of the task-structure and motor response modality.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Neural activity in the lateral intraparietal cortex (LIP) correlates with perceptual and categorical decisions, in addition to its role in mediating saccadic eye movements. Past work found that LIP is causally involved in visual decisions that are rapidly reported by saccades in a reaction time based decision making task. Here we use reversible inactivation of LIP to test whether LIP is also causally involved in visual decisions when reported by hand movements during delayed matching tasks. Here we show that LIP inactivation impaired monkeys' task performance during both memory-based discrimination and categorization tasks. These results demonstrate that LIP plays a generalized role in visual categorical decisions independent of the task-structure and motor response modality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Zhou
- Department of Neurobiology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Ou Zhu
- Department of Neurobiology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637
| | - David J Freedman
- Department of Neurobiology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637
- Neuroscience Institute, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637
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20
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Gorka AX, Philips RT, Torrisi S, Claudino L, Foray K, Grillon C, Ernst M. The Posterior Cingulate Cortex Reflects the Impact of Anxiety on Drift Rates During Cognitive Processing. BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY. COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROIMAGING 2023; 8:445-451. [PMID: 35381405 PMCID: PMC9526763 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2022.03.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2021] [Revised: 03/01/2022] [Accepted: 03/22/2022] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Generally, anxiety is thought to impair ongoing cognitive operations. Surprisingly, however, anxiety has been shown to improve performance during the Go/NoGo task. Understanding how anxiety can facilitate task performance may shed light on avenues to address the cognitive deficits commonly associated with anxiety. METHODS A total of 39 participants (mean age ± SD = 27.5 ± 7.22 years; 18 women) performed a Go/NoGo task during periods of safety and periods of experimental anxiety, induced using the unpredictable delivery of aversive stimuli. Computational analysis and ultrahigh field (7T) functional magnetic resonance imaging were used to determine how induced anxiety affected computational processes and blood oxygen level-dependent responses during the task. RESULTS Induced anxiety improved accuracy during the Go/NoGo task. Induced anxiety was associated with an amplified drift rate process, which is thought to reflect increased informational uptake. In addition, changes in drift rate during the anxiety condition were associated with enhanced blood oxygen level-dependent responses within the posterior cingulate cortex during Go trials. CONCLUSIONS These results may reflect the impact of induced anxiety on the activity of neurons within the posterior cingulate cortex, whose activity patterns mimic the buildup of evidence accumulation. Collectively, these results shed light on the mechanisms underlying facilitated task performance and suggest that anxiety can improve cognitive processing by enhancing information uptake and increasing activity within the posterior cingulate cortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam X Gorka
- Section on the Neurobiology of Fear and Anxiety, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
| | - Ryan T Philips
- Section on the Neurobiology of Fear and Anxiety, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Salvatore Torrisi
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California; Advanced MRI Technologies LLC, Sebastopol, California
| | - Leonardo Claudino
- Section on the Neurobiology of Fear and Anxiety, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Katherine Foray
- Section on the Neurobiology of Fear and Anxiety, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Christian Grillon
- Section on the Neurobiology of Fear and Anxiety, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Monique Ernst
- Section on the Neurobiology of Fear and Anxiety, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland
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21
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Abstract
Neural mechanisms of perceptual decision making have been extensively studied in experimental settings that mimic stable environments with repeating stimuli, fixed rules, and payoffs. In contrast, we live in an ever-changing environment and have varying goals and behavioral demands. To accommodate variability, our brain flexibly adjusts decision-making processes depending on context. Here, we review a growing body of research that explores the neural mechanisms underlying this flexibility. We highlight diverse forms of context dependency in decision making implemented through a variety of neural computations. Context-dependent neural activity is observed in a distributed network of brain structures, including posterior parietal, sensory, motor, and subcortical regions, as well as the prefrontal areas classically implicated in cognitive control. We propose that investigating the distributed network underlying flexible decisions is key to advancing our understanding and discuss a path forward for experimental and theoretical investigations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gouki Okazawa
- Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, USA;
- Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
| | - Roozbeh Kiani
- Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, USA;
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
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22
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Allocation of Visuospatial Attention Indexes Evidence Accumulation for Reach Decisions. eNeuro 2022; 9:ENEURO.0313-22.2022. [PMID: 36302633 PMCID: PMC9651207 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0313-22.2022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/02/2022] [Revised: 09/19/2022] [Accepted: 09/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Visuospatial attention is a prerequisite for the performance of visually guided movements: perceptual discrimination is regularly enhanced at target locations before movement initiation. It is known that this attentional prioritization evolves over the time of movement preparation; however, it is not clear whether this build-up simply reflects a time requirement of attention formation or whether, instead, attention build-up reflects the emergence of the movement decision. To address this question, we combined behavioral experiments, psychophysics, and computational decision-making models to characterize the time course of attention build-up during motor preparation. Participants (n = 46, 29 female) executed center-out reaches to one of two potential target locations and reported the identity of a visual discrimination target (DT) that occurred concurrently at one of various time-points during movement preparation and execution. Visual discrimination increased simultaneously at the two potential target locations but was modulated by the experiment-wide probability that a given location would become the final goal. Attention increased further for the location that was then designated as the final goal location, with a time course closely related to movement initiation. A sequential sampling model of decision-making faithfully predicted key temporal characteristics of attentional allocation. Together, these findings provide evidence that visuospatial attentional prioritization during motor preparation does not simply reflect that a spatial location has been selected as movement goal, but rather indexes the time-extended, cumulative decision that leads to the selection, hence constituting a link between perceptual and motor aspects of sensorimotor decisions.
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23
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Lee JH, Tsunada J, Vijayan S, Cohen YE. Cortical circuit-based lossless neural integrator for perceptual decision-making: A computational modeling study. Front Comput Neurosci 2022; 16:979830. [DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2022.979830] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2022] [Accepted: 10/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/05/2022] Open
Abstract
The intrinsic uncertainty of sensory information (i.e., evidence) does not necessarily deter an observer from making a reliable decision. Indeed, uncertainty can be reduced by integrating (accumulating) incoming sensory evidence. It is widely thought that this accumulation is instantiated via recurrent rate-code neural networks. Yet, these networks do not fully explain important aspects of perceptual decision-making, such as a subject’s ability to retain accumulated evidence during temporal gaps in the sensory evidence. Here, we utilized computational models to show that cortical circuits can switch flexibly between “retention” and “integration” modes during perceptual decision-making. Further, we found that, depending on how the sensory evidence was readout, we could simulate “stepping” and “ramping” activity patterns, which may be analogous to those seen in different studies of decision-making in the primate parietal cortex. This finding may reconcile these previous empirical studies because it suggests these two activity patterns emerge from the same mechanism.
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24
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McGaughey KD, Ding L. Passing the baton: Information transfer between neurons enables continuity of the decision process. Neuron 2022; 110:3061-3063. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.09.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
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25
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Cortical Mechanisms of Multisensory Linear Self-motion Perception. Neurosci Bull 2022; 39:125-137. [PMID: 35821337 PMCID: PMC9849545 DOI: 10.1007/s12264-022-00916-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2022] [Accepted: 04/29/2022] [Indexed: 01/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Accurate self-motion perception, which is critical for organisms to survive, is a process involving multiple sensory cues. The two most powerful cues are visual (optic flow) and vestibular (inertial motion). Psychophysical studies have indicated that humans and nonhuman primates integrate the two cues to improve the estimation of self-motion direction, often in a statistically Bayesian-optimal way. In the last decade, single-unit recordings in awake, behaving animals have provided valuable neurophysiological data with a high spatial and temporal resolution, giving insight into possible neural mechanisms underlying multisensory self-motion perception. Here, we review these findings, along with new evidence from the most recent studies focusing on the temporal dynamics of signals in different modalities. We show that, in light of new data, conventional thoughts about the cortical mechanisms underlying visuo-vestibular integration for linear self-motion are challenged. We propose that different temporal component signals may mediate different functions, a possibility that requires future studies.
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26
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Jeurissen D, Shushruth S, El-Shamayleh Y, Horwitz GD, Shadlen MN. Deficits in decision-making induced by parietal cortex inactivation are compensated at two timescales. Neuron 2022; 110:1924-1931.e5. [PMID: 35421328 PMCID: PMC9233071 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.03.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/10/2021] [Revised: 01/03/2022] [Accepted: 03/12/2022] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
Abstract
Perceptual decisions arise through the transformation of samples of evidence into a commitment to a proposition or plan of action. Such transformation is thought to involve cortical circuits capable of computation over timescales associated with working memory, attention, and planning. Neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) play a role in these functions, and much of what is known about the neurobiology of decision-making has been influenced by studies of LIP and its network of connections. However, the causal role of LIP remains controversial. In this study, we used pharmacological and chemogenetic methods to inactivate LIP in one brain hemisphere of four rhesus monkeys. This inactivation produced biases in decisions, but the effects dissipated despite persistent neural inactivation, implying compensation by unaffected areas. Compensation occurred rapidly within an experimental session and more gradually across sessions. These findings resolve disparate studies and inform the interpretation of focal perturbations of brain function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danique Jeurissen
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
| | - S Shushruth
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
| | - Yasmine El-Shamayleh
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Gregory D Horwitz
- Department of Physiology & Biophysics, Washington National Primate Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | - Michael N Shadlen
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA; Kavli Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
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27
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Shushruth S, Zylberberg A, Shadlen MN. Sequential sampling from memory underlies action selection during abstract decision-making. Curr Biol 2022; 32:1949-1960.e5. [PMID: 35354066 PMCID: PMC9090972 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.03.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2021] [Revised: 03/02/2022] [Accepted: 03/03/2022] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
The study of perceptual decision-making in monkeys has provided insights into the process by which sensory evidence is integrated toward a decision. When monkeys make decisions with the knowledge of the motor actions the decisions bear upon, the process of evidence integration is instantiated by neurons involved in the selection of said actions. It is less clear how monkeys make decisions when unaware of the actions required to communicate their choice-what we refer to as "abstract" decisions. We investigated this by training monkeys to associate the direction of motion of a noisy random-dot display with the color of two targets. Crucially, the targets were displayed at unpredictable locations after the motion stimulus was extinguished. We found that the monkeys postponed decision formation until the targets were revealed. Neurons in the parietal association area LIP represented the integration of evidence leading to a choice, but as the stimulus was no longer visible, the samples of evidence must have been retrieved from short-term memory. Our results imply that when decisions are temporally unyoked from the motor actions they bear upon, decision formation is protracted until they can be framed in terms of motor actions.
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Affiliation(s)
- S Shushruth
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, New York, NY 10027, USA.
| | - Ariel Zylberberg
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, New York, NY 10027, USA.
| | - Michael N Shadlen
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, New York, NY 10027, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, New York, NY 10027, USA; Kavli Institute, Columbia University, 612 West 130th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA.
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28
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Jia K, Frangou P, Karlaftis VM, Ziminski JJ, Giorgio J, Rideaux R, Zamboni E, Hodgson V, Emir U, Kourtzi Z. Neurochemical and functional interactions for improved perceptual decisions through training. J Neurophysiol 2022; 127:900-912. [PMID: 35235415 PMCID: PMC8977131 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00308.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Learning and experience are known to improve our ability to make perceptual decisions. Yet, our understanding of the brain mechanisms that support improved perceptual decisions through training remains limited. Here, we test the neurochemical and functional interactions that support learning for perceptual decisions in the context of an orientation identification task. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), we measure neurotransmitters (i.e., glutamate, GABA) that are known to be involved in visual processing and learning in sensory [early visual cortex (EV)] and decision-related [dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)] brain regions. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI), we test for functional interactions between these regions that relate to decision processes. We demonstrate that training improves perceptual judgments (i.e., orientation identification), as indicated by faster rates of evidence accumulation after training. These learning-dependent changes in decision processes relate to lower EV glutamate levels and EV-DLPFC connectivity, suggesting that glutamatergic excitation and functional interactions between visual and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex facilitate perceptual decisions. Further, anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in EV impairs learning, suggesting a direct link between visual cortex excitation and perceptual decisions. Our findings advance our understanding of the role of learning in perceptual decision making, suggesting that glutamatergic excitation for efficient sensory processing and functional interactions between sensory and decision-related regions support improved perceptual decisions.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Combining multimodal brain imaging [magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), functional connectivity] with interventions [transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)], we demonstrate that glutamatergic excitation and functional interactions between sensory (visual) and decision-related (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) areas support our ability to optimize perceptual decisions through training.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ke Jia
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Polytimi Frangou
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Vasilis M Karlaftis
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Joseph J Ziminski
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Joseph Giorgio
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Reuben Rideaux
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Elisa Zamboni
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Victoria Hodgson
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Uzay Emir
- Purdue University School of Health Sciences, West Lafayette, Indiana
| | - Zoe Kourtzi
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
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29
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Ashwood ZC, Roy NA, Stone IR, Urai AE, Churchland AK, Pouget A, Pillow JW. Mice alternate between discrete strategies during perceptual decision-making. Nat Neurosci 2022; 25:201-212. [PMID: 35132235 PMCID: PMC8890994 DOI: 10.1038/s41593-021-01007-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 59] [Impact Index Per Article: 29.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2021] [Accepted: 12/17/2021] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Classical models of perceptual decision-making assume that subjects use a single, consistent strategy to form decisions, or that decision-making strategies evolve slowly over time. Here we present new analyses suggesting that this common view is incorrect. We analyzed data from mouse and human decision-making experiments and found that choice behavior relies on an interplay among multiple interleaved strategies. These strategies, characterized by states in a hidden Markov model, persist for tens to hundreds of trials before switching, and often switch multiple times within a session. The identified decision-making strategies were highly consistent across mice and comprised a single 'engaged' state, in which decisions relied heavily on the sensory stimulus, and several biased states in which errors frequently occurred. These results provide a powerful alternate explanation for 'lapses' often observed in rodent behavioral experiments, and suggest that standard measures of performance mask the presence of major changes in strategy across trials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zoe C Ashwood
- Deptartment of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | | | - Iris R Stone
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Anne E Urai
- Cognitive Psychology Unit, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
| | - Anne K Churchland
- David Geffen School of Medicine, The University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Alexandre Pouget
- Faculty of Medicine & Deptartment of Basic Neurosciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Jonathan W Pillow
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA.
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
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30
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Shinn M, Lee D, Murray JD, Seo H. Transient neuronal suppression for exploitation of new sensory evidence. Nat Commun 2022; 13:23. [PMID: 35013222 PMCID: PMC8748884 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27697-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2021] [Accepted: 12/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
In noisy but stationary environments, decisions should be based on the temporal integration of sequentially sampled evidence. This strategy has been supported by many behavioral studies and is qualitatively consistent with neural activity in multiple brain areas. By contrast, decision-making in the face of non-stationary sensory evidence remains poorly understood. Here, we trained monkeys to identify and respond via saccade to the dominant color of a dynamically refreshed bicolor patch that becomes informative after a variable delay. Animals’ behavioral responses were briefly suppressed after evidence changes, and many neurons in the frontal eye field displayed a corresponding dip in activity at this time, similar to that frequently observed after stimulus onset but sensitive to stimulus strength. Generalized drift-diffusion models revealed consistency of behavior and neural activity with brief suppression of motor output, but not with pausing or resetting of evidence accumulation. These results suggest that momentary arrest of motor preparation is important for dynamic perceptual decision making. While evidence is constantly changing during real-world decisions, little is known about how the brain deals with such changes. Here, the authors show that the brain strategically suppresses motor output via the frontal eye fields in response to stimulus changes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maxwell Shinn
- Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.,Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA
| | - Daeyeol Lee
- Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA.,Kavli Discovery Neuroscience Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA.,Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA.,Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA
| | - John D Murray
- Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA. .,Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA. .,Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA. .,Department of Neuroscience, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.
| | - Hyojung Seo
- Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA. .,Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA. .,Department of Neuroscience, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.
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31
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Gupta A, Bansal R, Alashwal H, Kacar AS, Balci F, Moustafa AA. Neural Substrates of the Drift-Diffusion Model in Brain Disorders. Front Comput Neurosci 2022; 15:678232. [PMID: 35069160 PMCID: PMC8776710 DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2021.678232] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2021] [Accepted: 11/25/2021] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
Many studies on the drift-diffusion model (DDM) explain decision-making based on a unified analysis of both accuracy and response times. This review provides an in-depth account of the recent advances in DDM research which ground different DDM parameters on several brain areas, including the cortex and basal ganglia. Furthermore, we discuss the changes in DDM parameters due to structural and functional impairments in several clinical disorders, including Parkinson's disease, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorders, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and schizophrenia. This review thus uses DDM to provide a theoretical understanding of different brain disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ankur Gupta
- CNRS UMR 5293, Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
| | - Rohini Bansal
- Department of Medical Neurobiology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Hany Alashwal
- College of Information Technology, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates
- *Correspondence: Hany Alashwal
| | - Anil Safak Kacar
- Research Center for Translational Medicine (KUTTAM), Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey
| | - Fuat Balci
- Research Center for Translational Medicine (KUTTAM), Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
| | - Ahmed A. Moustafa
- School of Psychology & Marcs Institute for Brain and Behaviour, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- School of Psychology, Faculty of Society and Design, Bond University, Robina, QLD, Australia
- Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Human Anatomy and Physiology, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
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32
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Zheng Q, Zhou L, Gu Y. Temporal synchrony effects of optic flow and vestibular inputs on multisensory heading perception. Cell Rep 2021; 37:109999. [PMID: 34788608 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109999] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2020] [Revised: 08/21/2021] [Accepted: 10/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Precise heading perception requires integration of optic flow and vestibular cues, yet the two cues often carry distinct temporal dynamics that may confound cue integration benefit. Here, we varied temporal offset between the two sensory inputs while macaques discriminated headings around straight ahead. We find the best heading performance does not occur under natural condition of synchronous inputs with zero offset but rather when visual stimuli are artificially adjusted to lead vestibular by a few hundreds of milliseconds. This amount exactly matches the lag between the vestibular acceleration and visual speed signals as measured from single-unit-activity in frontal and posterior parietal cortices. Manually aligning cues in these areas best facilitates integration with some nonlinear gain modulation effects. These findings are consistent with predictions from a model by which the brain integrates optic flow speed with a faster vestibular acceleration signal for sensing instantaneous heading direction during self-motion in the environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qihao Zheng
- CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200031 Shanghai, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049 Beijing, China
| | - Luxin Zhou
- CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200031 Shanghai, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049 Beijing, China
| | - Yong Gu
- CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200031 Shanghai, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049 Beijing, China; Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence Technology, 201210 Shanghai, China.
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33
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Piette C, Vandecasteele M, Bosch-Bouju C, Goubard V, Paillé V, Cui Y, Mendes A, Perez S, Valtcheva S, Xu H, Pouget P, Venance L. Intracellular Properties of Deep-Layer Pyramidal Neurons in Frontal Eye Field of Macaque Monkeys. Front Synaptic Neurosci 2021; 13:725880. [PMID: 34621162 PMCID: PMC8490863 DOI: 10.3389/fnsyn.2021.725880] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2021] [Accepted: 08/24/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Although many details remain unknown, several positive statements can be made about the laminar distribution of primate frontal eye field (FEF) neurons with different physiological properties. Most certainly, pyramidal neurons in the deep layer of FEF that project to the brainstem carry movement and fixation signals but clear evidence also support that at least some deep-layer pyramidal neurons projecting to the superior colliculus carry visual responses. Thus, deep-layer neurons in FEF are functionally heterogeneous. Despite the useful functional distinctions between neuronal responses in vivo, the underlying existence of distinct cell types remain uncertain, mostly due to methodological limitations of extracellular recordings in awake behaving primates. To substantiate the functionally defined cell types encountered in the deep layer of FEF, we measured the biophysical properties of pyramidal neurons recorded intracellularly in brain slices issued from macaque monkey biopsies. Here, we found that biophysical properties recorded in vitro permit us to distinguish two main subtypes of regular-spiking neurons, with, respectively, low-resistance and low excitability vs. high-resistance and strong excitability. These results provide useful constraints for cognitive models of visual attention and saccade production by indicating that at least two distinct populations of deep-layer neurons exist.
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Affiliation(s)
- Charlotte Piette
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - Marie Vandecasteele
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - Clémentine Bosch-Bouju
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - Valérie Goubard
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - Vincent Paillé
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - Yihui Cui
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - Alexandre Mendes
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - Sylvie Perez
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - Silvana Valtcheva
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - Hao Xu
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - Pierre Pouget
- INSERM, CNRS, Institut du Cerveau, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
| | - Laurent Venance
- Dynamics and Pathophysiology of Neuronal Networks Team, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CIRB), College de France, CNRS, INSERM, PSL University, Paris, France
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34
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Zhou Y, Rosen MC, Swaminathan SK, Masse NY, Zhu O, Freedman DJ. Distributed functions of prefrontal and parietal cortices during sequential categorical decisions. eLife 2021; 10:e58782. [PMID: 34491201 PMCID: PMC8423442 DOI: 10.7554/elife.58782] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2020] [Accepted: 07/13/2021] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Comparing sequential stimuli is crucial for guiding complex behaviors. To understand mechanisms underlying sequential decisions, we compared neuronal responses in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the lateral intraparietal (LIP), and medial intraparietal (MIP) areas in monkeys trained to decide whether sequentially presented stimuli were from matching (M) or nonmatching (NM) categories. We found that PFC leads M/NM decisions, whereas LIP and MIP appear more involved in stimulus evaluation and motor planning, respectively. Compared to LIP, PFC showed greater nonlinear integration of currently visible and remembered stimuli, which correlated with the monkeys' M/NM decisions. Furthermore, multi-module recurrent networks trained on the same task exhibited key features of PFC and LIP encoding, including nonlinear integration in the PFC-like module, which was causally involved in the networks' decisions. Network analysis found that nonlinear units have stronger and more widespread connections with input, output, and within-area units, indicating putative circuit-level mechanisms for sequential decisions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Zhou
- Department of Neurobiology, The University of ChicagoChicagoUnited States
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking UniversityBeijingChina
| | - Matthew C Rosen
- Department of Neurobiology, The University of ChicagoChicagoUnited States
| | | | - Nicolas Y Masse
- Department of Neurobiology, The University of ChicagoChicagoUnited States
| | - Ou Zhu
- Department of Neurobiology, The University of ChicagoChicagoUnited States
| | - David J Freedman
- Department of Neurobiology, The University of ChicagoChicagoUnited States
- Neuroscience Institute, The University of ChicagoChicagoUnited States
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35
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Shanahan LK, Bhutani S, Kahnt T. Olfactory perceptual decision-making is biased by motivational state. PLoS Biol 2021; 19:e3001374. [PMID: 34437533 PMCID: PMC8389475 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001374] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2021] [Accepted: 07/29/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Growing evidence suggests that internal factors influence how we perceive the world. However, it remains unclear whether and how motivational states, such as hunger and satiety, regulate perceptual decision-making in the olfactory domain. Here, we developed a novel behavioral task involving mixtures of food and nonfood odors (i.e., cinnamon bun and cedar; pizza and pine) to assess olfactory perceptual decision-making in humans. Participants completed the task before and after eating a meal that matched one of the food odors, allowing us to compare perception of meal-matched and non-matched odors across fasted and sated states. We found that participants were less likely to perceive meal-matched, but not non-matched, odors as food dominant in the sated state. Moreover, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data revealed neural changes that paralleled these behavioral effects. Namely, odor-evoked fMRI responses in olfactory/limbic brain regions were altered after the meal, such that neural patterns for meal-matched odor pairs were less discriminable and less food-like than their non-matched counterparts. Our findings demonstrate that olfactory perceptual decision-making is biased by motivational state in an odor-specific manner and highlight a potential brain mechanism underlying this adaptive behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura K. Shanahan
- Department of Neurology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- * E-mail: (LKS); (TK)
| | - Surabhi Bhutani
- Department of Neurology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- School of Exercise and Nutritional Sciences, College of Health and Human Services, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, United States of America
| | - Thorsten Kahnt
- Department of Neurology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- Department of Psychology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America
- * E-mail: (LKS); (TK)
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36
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Lee EK, Balasubramanian H, Tsolias A, Anakwe SU, Medalla M, Shenoy KV, Chandrasekaran C. Non-linear dimensionality reduction on extracellular waveforms reveals cell type diversity in premotor cortex. eLife 2021; 10:e67490. [PMID: 34355695 PMCID: PMC8452311 DOI: 10.7554/elife.67490] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2021] [Accepted: 08/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Cortical circuits are thought to contain a large number of cell types that coordinate to produce behavior. Current in vivo methods rely on clustering of specified features of extracellular waveforms to identify putative cell types, but these capture only a small amount of variation. Here, we develop a new method (WaveMAP) that combines non-linear dimensionality reduction with graph clustering to identify putative cell types. We apply WaveMAP to extracellular waveforms recorded from dorsal premotor cortex of macaque monkeys performing a decision-making task. Using WaveMAP, we robustly establish eight waveform clusters and show that these clusters recapitulate previously identified narrow- and broad-spiking types while revealing previously unknown diversity within these subtypes. The eight clusters exhibited distinct laminar distributions, characteristic firing rate patterns, and decision-related dynamics. Such insights were weaker when using feature-based approaches. WaveMAP therefore provides a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of cell types in cortical circuits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric Kenji Lee
- Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston UniversityBostonUnited States
| | - Hymavathy Balasubramanian
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Bernstein Center for Computational NeuroscienceBerlinGermany
| | - Alexandra Tsolias
- Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston UniversityBostonUnited States
| | | | - Maria Medalla
- Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston UniversityBostonUnited States
| | - Krishna V Shenoy
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford UniversityStanfordUnited States
- Department of Bioengineering, Stanford UniversityStanfordUnited States
- Department of Neurobiology, Stanford UniversityStanfordUnited States
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford UniversityStanfordUnited States
- Bio-X Institute, Stanford UniversityStanfordUnited States
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford UniversityStanfordUnited States
| | - Chandramouli Chandrasekaran
- Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston UniversityBostonUnited States
- Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston UniversityBostonUnited States
- Center for Systems Neuroscience, Boston UniversityBostonUnited States
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston UniversityBostonUnited States
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37
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O’Callaghan C, Firbank M, Tomassini A, Schumacher J, O’Brien JT, Taylor JP. Impaired sensory evidence accumulation and network function in Lewy body dementia. Brain Commun 2021; 3:fcab089. [PMID: 34396098 PMCID: PMC8361397 DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcab089] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/07/2021] [Revised: 03/02/2021] [Accepted: 03/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Deficits in attention underpin many of the cognitive and neuropsychiatric features of Lewy body dementia. These attention-related symptoms remain difficult to treat and there are many gaps in our understanding of their neurobiology. An improved understanding of attention-related impairments can be achieved via mathematical modelling approaches, which identify cognitive parameters to provide an intermediate level between observed behavioural data and its underlying neural correlate. Here, we apply this approach to identify the role of impaired sensory evidence accumulation in the attention deficits that characterize Lewy body dementia. In 31 people with Lewy body dementia (including 13 Parkinson's disease dementia and 18 dementia with Lewy bodies cases), 16 people with Alzheimer's disease, and 23 healthy controls, we administered an attention task whilst they underwent functional 3 T MRI. Using hierarchical Bayesian estimation of a drift-diffusion model, we decomposed task performance into drift rate and decision boundary parameters. We tested the hypothesis that the drift rate-a measure of the quality of sensory evidence accumulation-is specifically impaired in Lewy body dementia, compared to Alzheimer's disease. We further explored whether trial-by-trial variations in the drift rate related to activity within the default and dorsal attention networks, to determine whether altered activity in these networks was associated with slowed drift rates in Lewy body dementia. Our results revealed slower drift rates in the Lewy body dementia compared to the Alzheimer's disease group, whereas the patient groups were equivalent for their decision boundaries. The patient groups were reduced relative to controls for both parameters. This highlights sensory evidence accumulation deficits as a key feature that distinguishes attention impairments in Lewy body dementia, consistent with impaired ability to efficiently process information from the environment to guide behaviour. We also found that the drift rate was strongly related to activity in the dorsal attention network across all three groups, whereas the Lewy body dementia group showed a divergent relationship relative to the Alzheimer's disease and control groups for the default network, consistent with altered default network modulation being associated with impaired evidence accumulation. Together, our findings reveal impaired sensory evidence accumulation as a specific marker of attention problems in Lewy body dementia, which may relate to large-scale network abnormalities. By identifying impairments in a specific sub-process of attention, these findings will inform future exploratory and intervention studies that aim to understand and treat attention-related symptoms that are a key feature of Lewy body dementia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claire O’Callaghan
- Brain and Mind Centre and School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney 2050, Australia
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0SZ, UK
| | - Michael Firbank
- Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University, Campus for Ageing and Vitality, Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 5PL, UK
| | - Alessandro Tomassini
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK
| | - Julia Schumacher
- Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University, Campus for Ageing and Vitality, Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 5PL, UK
| | - John T O’Brien
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0SZ, UK
| | - John-Paul Taylor
- Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University, Campus for Ageing and Vitality, Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 5PL, UK
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38
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Wolf C, Lappe M. Vision as oculomotor reward: cognitive contributions to the dynamic control of saccadic eye movements. Cogn Neurodyn 2021; 15:547-568. [PMID: 34367360 PMCID: PMC8286912 DOI: 10.1007/s11571-020-09661-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2020] [Revised: 12/12/2020] [Accepted: 12/28/2020] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Humans and other primates are equipped with a foveated visual system. As a consequence, we reorient our fovea to objects and targets in the visual field that are conspicuous or that we consider relevant or worth looking at. These reorientations are achieved by means of saccadic eye movements. Where we saccade to depends on various low-level factors such as a targets' luminance but also crucially on high-level factors like the expected reward or a targets' relevance for perception and subsequent behavior. Here, we review recent findings how the control of saccadic eye movements is influenced by higher-level cognitive processes. We first describe the pathways by which cognitive contributions can influence the neural oculomotor circuit. Second, we summarize what saccade parameters reveal about cognitive mechanisms, particularly saccade latencies, saccade kinematics and changes in saccade gain. Finally, we review findings on what renders a saccade target valuable, as reflected in oculomotor behavior. We emphasize that foveal vision of the target after the saccade can constitute an internal reward for the visual system and that this is reflected in oculomotor dynamics that serve to quickly and accurately provide detailed foveal vision of relevant targets in the visual field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian Wolf
- Institute for Psychology, University of Muenster, Fliednerstrasse 21, 48149 Münster, Germany
| | - Markus Lappe
- Institute for Psychology, University of Muenster, Fliednerstrasse 21, 48149 Münster, Germany
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39
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Okazawa G, Hatch CE, Mancoo A, Machens CK, Kiani R. Representational geometry of perceptual decisions in the monkey parietal cortex. Cell 2021; 184:3748-3761.e18. [PMID: 34171308 PMCID: PMC8273140 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.05.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2020] [Revised: 12/23/2020] [Accepted: 05/17/2021] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
Lateral intraparietal (LIP) neurons represent formation of perceptual decisions involving eye movements. In circuit models for these decisions, neural ensembles that encode actions compete to form decisions. Consequently, representation and readout of the decision variables (DVs) are implemented similarly for decisions with identical competing actions, irrespective of input and task context differences. Further, DVs are encoded as partially potentiated action plans through balance of activity of action-selective ensembles. Here, we test those core principles. We show that in a novel face-discrimination task, LIP firing rates decrease with supporting evidence, contrary to conventional motion-discrimination tasks. These opposite response patterns arise from similar mechanisms in which decisions form along curved population-response manifolds misaligned with action representations. These manifolds rotate in state space based on context, indicating distinct optimal readouts for different tasks. We show similar manifolds in lateral and medial prefrontal cortices, suggesting similar representational geometry across decision-making circuits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gouki Okazawa
- Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
| | - Christina E Hatch
- Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
| | - Allan Mancoo
- Champalimaud Research, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, 1400-038 Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Christian K Machens
- Champalimaud Research, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, 1400-038 Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Roozbeh Kiani
- Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA; Neuroscience Institute, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10016, USA; Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
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40
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Stanford TR, Salinas E. Urgent Decision Making: Resolving Visuomotor Interactions at High Temporal Resolution. Annu Rev Vis Sci 2021; 7:323-348. [PMID: 34171199 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-vision-100419-103842] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Measuring when exactly perceptual decisions are made is crucial for defining how the activation of specific neurons contributes to behavior. However, in traditional, nonurgent visuomotor tasks, the uncertainty of this temporal measurement is very large. This is a problem not only for delimiting the capacity of perception, but also for correctly interpreting the functional roles ascribed to choice-related neuronal responses. In this article, we review psychophysical, neurophysiological, and modeling work based on urgent visuomotor tasks in which this temporal uncertainty can be effectively overcome. The cornerstone of this work is a novel behavioral metric that describes the evolution of the subject's perceptual judgment moment by moment, allowing us to resolve numerous perceptual events that unfold within a few tens of milliseconds. In this framework, the neural distinction between perceptual evaluation and motor selection processes becomes particularly clear, as the conclusion of one is not contingent on that of the other. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Vision Science, Volume 7 is September 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Terrence R Stanford
- Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27157, USA; ,
| | - Emilio Salinas
- Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27157, USA; ,
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41
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Mirpour K, Bisley JW. The roles of the lateral intraparietal area and frontal eye field in guiding eye movements in free viewing search behavior. J Neurophysiol 2021; 125:2144-2157. [PMID: 33949898 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00559.2020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
The lateral intraparietal area (LIP) and frontal eye field (FEF) have been shown to play significant roles in oculomotor control, yet most studies have found that the two areas behave similarly. To identify the unique roles each area plays in guiding eye movements, we recorded 200 LIP neurons and 231 FEF neurons from four animals performing a free viewing visual foraging task. We analyzed how neuronal responses were modulated by stimulus identity and the animals' choice of where to make a saccade. We additionally analyzed the comodulation of the sensory signals and the choice signal to identify how the sensory signals drove the choice. We found a clearly defined division of labor: LIP provided a stable map integrating task rules and stimulus identity, whereas FEF responses were dynamic, representing more complex information and, just before the saccade, were integrated with task rules and stimulus identity to decide where to move the eye.NEW & NOTEWORTHY The lateral intrapareital area (LIP) and frontal eye field (FEF) are known to contribute to guiding eye movements, but little is known about the unique roles that each area plays. Using a free viewing visual search task, we found that LIP provides a stable map of the visual world, integrating task rules and stimulus identity. FEF activity is consistently modulated by more complex information but, just before the saccade, integrates all the information to make the final decision about where to move.
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Affiliation(s)
- Koorosh Mirpour
- Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California
| | - James W Bisley
- Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California.,Jules Stein Eye Institute, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California.,Department of Psychology and the Brain Research Institute, UCLA, Los Angeles, California
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42
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Zhou SH, Loughnane G, O'Connell R, Bellgrove MA, Chong TTJ. Distractors Selectively Modulate Electrophysiological Markers of Perceptual Decisions. J Cogn Neurosci 2021; 33:1020-1031. [PMID: 34428789 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01703] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
Current models of perceptual decision-making assume that choices are made after evidence in favor of an alternative accumulates to a given threshold. This process has recently been revealed in human EEG recordings, but an unresolved issue is how these neural mechanisms are modulated by competing, yet task-irrelevant, stimuli. In this study, we tested 20 healthy participants on a motion direction discrimination task. Participants monitored two patches of random dot motion simultaneously presented on either side of fixation for periodic changes in an upward or downward motion, which could occur equiprobably in either patch. On a random 50% of trials, these periods of coherent vertical motion were accompanied by simultaneous task-irrelevant, horizontal motion in the contralateral patch. Our data showed that these distractors selectively increased the amplitude of early target selection responses over scalp sites contralateral to the distractor stimulus, without impacting on responses ipsilateral to the distractor. Importantly, this modulation mediated a decrement in the subsequent buildup rate of a neural signature of evidence accumulation and accounted for a slowing of RTs. These data offer new insights into the functional interactions between target selection and evidence accumulation signals, and their susceptibility to task-irrelevant distractors. More broadly, these data neurally inform future models of perceptual decision-making by highlighting the influence of early processing of competing stimuli on the accumulation of perceptual evidence.
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43
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Talluri BC, Urai AE, Bronfman ZZ, Brezis N, Tsetsos K, Usher M, Donner TH. Choices change the temporal weighting of decision evidence. J Neurophysiol 2021; 125:1468-1481. [PMID: 33689508 PMCID: PMC8285578 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00462.2020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2020] [Revised: 02/16/2021] [Accepted: 03/04/2021] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Many decisions result from the accumulation of decision-relevant information (evidence) over time. Even when maximizing decision accuracy requires weighting all the evidence equally, decision-makers often give stronger weight to evidence occurring early or late in the evidence stream. Here, we show changes in such temporal biases within participants as a function of intermittent judgments about parts of the evidence stream. Human participants performed a decision task that required a continuous estimation of the mean evidence at the end of the stream. The evidence was either perceptual (noisy random dot motion) or symbolic (variable sequences of numbers). Participants also reported a categorical judgment of the preceding evidence half-way through the stream in one condition or executed an evidence-independent motor response in another condition. The relative impact of early versus late evidence on the final estimation flipped between these two conditions. In particular, participants' sensitivity to late evidence after the intermittent judgment, but not the simple motor response, was decreased. Both the intermittent response as well as the final estimation reports were accompanied by nonluminance-mediated increases of pupil diameter. These pupil dilations were bigger during intermittent judgments than simple motor responses and bigger during estimation when the late evidence was consistent than inconsistent with the initial judgment. In sum, decisions activate pupil-linked arousal systems and alter the temporal weighting of decision evidence. Our results are consistent with the idea that categorical choices in the face of uncertainty induce a change in the state of the neural circuits underlying decision-making.NEW & NOTEWORTHY The psychology and neuroscience of decision-making have extensively studied the accumulation of decision-relevant information toward a categorical choice. Much fewer studies have assessed the impact of a choice on the processing of subsequent information. Here, we show that intermittent choices during a protracted stream of input reduce the sensitivity to subsequent decision information and transiently boost arousal. Choices might trigger a state change in the neural machinery for decision-making.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bharath Chandra Talluri
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Anne E Urai
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | | | - Noam Brezis
- School of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Konstantinos Tsetsos
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Marius Usher
- School of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Tobias H Donner
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Amsterdam Brain and Cognition Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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44
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Kang YH, Löffler A, Jeurissen D, Zylberberg A, Wolpert DM, Shadlen MN. Multiple decisions about one object involve parallel sensory acquisition but time-multiplexed evidence incorporation. eLife 2021; 10:63721. [PMID: 33688829 PMCID: PMC8112870 DOI: 10.7554/elife.63721] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2020] [Accepted: 03/06/2021] [Indexed: 01/31/2023] Open
Abstract
The brain is capable of processing several streams of information that bear on different aspects of the same problem. Here, we address the problem of making two decisions about one object, by studying difficult perceptual decisions about the color and motion of a dynamic random dot display. We find that the accuracy of one decision is unaffected by the difficulty of the other decision. However, the response times reveal that the two decisions do not form simultaneously. We show that both stimulus dimensions are acquired in parallel for the initial ∼0.1 s but are then incorporated serially in time-multiplexed bouts. Thus, there is a bottleneck that precludes updating more than one decision at a time, and a buffer that stores samples of evidence while access to the decision is blocked. We suggest that this bottleneck is responsible for the long timescales of many cognitive operations framed as decisions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yul Hr Kang
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, United States.,Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Anne Löffler
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, United States.,Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, New York, United States
| | - Danique Jeurissen
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, United States.,Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, United States
| | - Ariel Zylberberg
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, United States.,Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, United States
| | - Daniel M Wolpert
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, United States
| | - Michael N Shadlen
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, United States.,Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, New York, United States.,Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, United States
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45
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Miyamoto T, Miura K, Kizuka T, Ono S. Properties of smooth pursuit and visual motion reaction time to second-order motion stimuli. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0243430. [PMID: 33315877 PMCID: PMC7735583 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243430] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2020] [Accepted: 11/23/2020] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
A large number of psychophysical and neurophysiological studies have demonstrated that smooth pursuit eye movements are tightly related to visual motion perception. This could be due to the fact that visual motion sensitive cortical areas such as meddle temporal (MT), medial superior temporal (MST) areas are involved in motion perception as well as pursuit initiation. Although the directional-discrimination and perceived target velocity tasks are used to evaluate visual motion perception, it is still uncertain whether the speed of visual motion perception, which is determined by visuomotor reaction time (RT) to a small target, is related to pursuit initiation. Therefore, we attempted to determine the relationship between pursuit latency/acceleration and the visual motion RT which was measured to the visual motion stimuli that moved leftward or rightward. The participants were instructed to fixate on a stationary target and press one of the buttons corresponding to the direction of target motion as soon as possible once the target starts to move. We applied five different visual motion stimuli including first- and second-order motion for smooth pursuit and visual motion RT tasks. It is well known that second-order motion induces lower retinal image motion, which elicits weaker responses in MT and MST compared to first-order motion stimuli. Our results showed that pursuit initiation including latency and initial eye acceleration were suppressed by second-order motion. In addition, second-order motion caused a delay in visual motion RT. The better performances in both pursuit initiation and visual motion RT were observed for first-order motion, whereas second-order (theta motion) induced remarkable deficits in both variables. Furthermore, significant Pearson's correlation and within-subjects correlation coefficients were obtained between visual motion RT and pursuit latency/acceleration. Our findings support the suggestion that there is a common neuronal pathway involved in both pursuit initiation and the speed of visual motion perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Takeshi Miyamoto
- Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
| | - Kenichiro Miura
- Department of Pathology of Mental Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Tokyo, Japan
- Department of Integrative Brain Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Tomohiro Kizuka
- Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
| | - Seiji Ono
- Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
- * E-mail:
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46
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Chen X, Zirnsak M, Vega GM, Moore T. Frontal eye field neurons selectively signal the reward value of prior actions. Prog Neurobiol 2020; 195:101881. [PMID: 32628973 PMCID: PMC7736534 DOI: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2020.101881] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2020] [Revised: 06/21/2020] [Accepted: 06/26/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
The consequences of individual actions are typically unknown until well after they are executed. This fact necessitates a mechanism that bridges delays between specific actions and reward outcomes. We looked for the presence of such a mechanism in the post-movement activity of neurons in the frontal eye field (FEF), a visuomotor area in prefrontal cortex. Monkeys performed an oculomotor gamble task in which they made eye movements to different locations associated with dynamically varying reward outcomes. Behavioral data showed that monkeys tracked reward history and made choices according to their own risk preferences. Consistent with previous studies, we observed that the activity of FEF neurons is correlated with the expected reward value of different eye movements before a target appears. Moreover, we observed that the activity of FEF neurons continued to signal the direction of eye movements, the expected reward value, and their interaction well after the movements were completed and when targets were no longer within the neuronal response field. In addition, this post-movement information was also observed in local field potentials, particularly in low-frequency bands. These results show that neural signals of prior actions and expected reward value persist across delays between those actions and their experienced outcomes. These memory traces may serve a role in reward-based learning in which subjects need to learn actions predicting delayed reward.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaomo Chen
- Department of Neurobiology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Marc Zirnsak
- Department of Neurobiology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Gabriel M Vega
- Department of Neurobiology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Tirin Moore
- Department of Neurobiology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
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47
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Fan Y, Gold JI, Ding L. Frontal eye field and caudate neurons make different contributions to reward-biased perceptual decisions. eLife 2020; 9:60535. [PMID: 33245044 PMCID: PMC7695458 DOI: 10.7554/elife.60535] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2020] [Accepted: 11/18/2020] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Many decisions require trade-offs between sensory evidence and internal preferences. Potential neural substrates include the frontal eye field (FEF) and caudate nucleus, but their distinct roles are not understood. Previously we showed that monkeys’ decisions on a direction-discrimination task with asymmetric rewards reflected a biased accumulate-to-bound decision process (Fan et al., 2018) that was affected by caudate microstimulation (Doi et al., 2020). Here we compared single-neuron activity in FEF and caudate to each other and to accumulate-to-bound model predictions derived from behavior. Task-dependent neural modulations were similar in both regions. However, choice-selective neurons in FEF, but not caudate, encoded behaviorally derived biases in the accumulation process. Baseline activity in both regions was sensitive to reward context, but this sensitivity was not reliably associated with behavioral biases. These results imply distinct contributions of FEF and caudate neurons to reward-biased decision-making and put experimental constraints on the neural implementation of accumulation-to-bound-like computations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yunshu Fan
- Department of Neuroscience and Neuroscience Graduate Group, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States
| | - Joshua I Gold
- Department of Neuroscience and Neuroscience Graduate Group, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States
| | - Long Ding
- Department of Neuroscience and Neuroscience Graduate Group, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States
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48
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Wu YH, Velenosi LA, Blankenburg F. Response modality-dependent categorical choice representations for vibrotactile comparisons. Neuroimage 2020; 226:117592. [PMID: 33248258 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117592] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2019] [Revised: 11/15/2020] [Accepted: 11/18/2020] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous electrophysiological studies in monkeys and humans suggest that premotor regions are the primary loci for the encoding of perceptual choices during vibrotactile comparisons. However, these studies employed paradigms wherein choices were inextricably linked with the stimulus order and selection of manual movements. It remains largely unknown how vibrotactile choices are represented when they are decoupled from these sensorimotor components of the task. To address this question, we used fMRI-MVPA and a variant of the vibrotactile frequency discrimination task which enabled the isolation of choice-related signals from those related to stimulus order and selection of the manual decision reports. We identified the left contralateral dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) and intraparietal sulcus (IPS) as carrying information about vibrotactile choices. Our finding provides empirical evidence for an involvement of the PMd and IPS in vibrotactile decisions that goes above and beyond the coding of stimulus order and specific action selection. Considering findings from recent studies in animals, we speculate that the premotor region likely serves as a temporary storage site for information necessary for the specification of concrete manual movements, while the IPS might be more directly involved in the computation of choice. Moreover, this finding replicates results from our previous work using an oculomotor variant of the task, with the important difference that the informative premotor cluster identified in the previous work was centered in the bilateral frontal eye fields rather than in the PMd. Evidence from these two studies indicates that categorical choices in human vibrotactile comparisons are represented in a response modality-dependent manner.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuan-Hao Wu
- Neurocomputation and Neuroimaging Unit (NNU), Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
| | - Lisa A Velenosi
- Neurocomputation and Neuroimaging Unit (NNU), Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - Felix Blankenburg
- Neurocomputation and Neuroimaging Unit (NNU), Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany
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49
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Prefrontal cortex exhibits multidimensional dynamic encoding during decision-making. Nat Neurosci 2020; 23:1410-1420. [PMID: 33020653 PMCID: PMC7610668 DOI: 10.1038/s41593-020-0696-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 66] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2018] [Accepted: 07/21/2020] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
Recent work has suggested that prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a key role in context-dependent perceptual decision-making. Here we address that role using a new method for identifying task-relevant dimensions of neural population activity. Specifically, we show that PFC has a multi-dimensional code for context, decisions, and both relevant and irrelevant sensory information. Moreover, these representations evolve in time, with an early linear accumulation phase followed by a phase with rotational dynamics. We identify the dimensions of neural activity associated with these phases, and show that they do not arise from distinct populations, but of a single population with broad tuning characteristics. Finally, we use model-based decoding to show that the transition from linear to rotational dynamics coincides with a plateau in decoding accuracy, revealing that rotational dynamics in PFC preserve sensory choice information for the duration of the stimulus integration period.
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50
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Zhou Y, Liu Y, Zhang M. Neuronal Correlates of Many-To-One Sensorimotor Mapping in Lateral Intraparietal Cortex. Cereb Cortex 2020; 30:5583-5596. [PMID: 32488241 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa145] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2019] [Revised: 04/01/2020] [Accepted: 05/09/2020] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Efficiently mapping sensory stimuli onto motor programs is crucial for rapidly choosing appropriate behavioral responses. While neuronal mechanisms underlying simple, one-to-one sensorimotor mapping have been extensively studied, how the brain achieves complex, many-to-one sensorimotor mapping remains unclear. Here, we recorded single neuron activity from the lateral intraparietal (LIP) cortex of monkeys trained to map multiple spatial positions of visual cue onto two opposite saccades. We found that LIP neurons' activity was consistent with directly mapping multiple cue positions to the associated saccadic direction (SDir) regardless of whether the visual cue appeared in or outside neurons' receptive fields. Unlike the explicit encoding of the visual categories, such cue-target mapping (CTM)-related activity covaried with the associated SDirs. Furthermore, the CTM was preferentially mediated by visual neurons identified by memory-guided saccade. These results indicate that LIP plays a crucial role in the early stage of many-to-one sensorimotor transformation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Zhou
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning; IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research at BNU; Division of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.,Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory for Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China.,Department of Neurobiology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
| | - Yining Liu
- The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Henan 450052, China
| | - Mingsha Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning; IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research at BNU; Division of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
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