scholarly journals The Imposition of Value on Odor: Transient and Persistent Representations of Odor Value in Prefrontal Cortex

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Y. Wang ◽  
Cristian Boboila ◽  
Philip Shamash ◽  
Zheng Wu ◽  
Nicole P Stein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Orbitofrontal Cortex ◽  
Internal State ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Olfactory Cortex ◽  
Conditioned Stimuli ◽  
Photon Imaging

SUMMARYThe representation of odor in olfactory cortex (piriform) is distributive and unstructured and can only be afforded behavioral significance upon learning. We performed 2-photon imaging to examine the representation of odors in piriform and in two downstream stations, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), as mice learned olfactory associations. In piriform we observed minor changes in neural activity unrelated to learning. In OFC, 30% of the neurons acquired robust responses to conditioned stimuli (CS+) after learning, and these responses were gated by context and internal state. The representation in OFC, however, diminished after learning and persistent representations of CS+ and CS− odors emerged in mPFC. Optogenetic silencing indicates that these two brain structures function sequentially to consolidate the learning of appetitive associations. These data demonstrate the transformation of a representation of odor identity in piriform into transient and persistent representations of value in the prefrontal cortex.

scholarly journals Slow drift of neural activity as a signature of impulsivity in macaque visual and prefrontal cortex

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin R. Cowley ◽  
Adam C. Snyder ◽  
Katerina Acar ◽  
Ryan C. Williamson ◽  
Byron M. Yu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Internal State ◽  
Sensory Stimulus ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Population Activity ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Slow Drift ◽  
Sensory Evidence

AbstractAn animal’s decision depends not only on incoming sensory evidence but also on its fluctuating internal state. This internal state is a product of cognitive factors, such as fatigue, motivation, and arousal, but it is unclear how these factors influence the neural processes that encode the sensory stimulus and form a decision. We discovered that, over the timescale of tens of minutes during a perceptual decision-making task, animals slowly shifted their likelihood of reporting stimulus changes. They did this unprompted by task conditions. We recorded neural population activity from visual area V4 as well as prefrontal cortex, and found that the activity of both areas slowly drifted together with the behavioral fluctuations. We reasoned that such slow fluctuations in behavior could either be due to slow changes in how the sensory stimulus is processed or due to a process that acts independently of sensory processing. By analyzing the recorded activity in conjunction with models of perceptual decision-making, we found evidence for the slow drift in neural activity acting as an impulsivity signal, overriding sensory evidence to dictate the final decision. Overall, this work uncovers an internal state embedded in the population activity across multiple brain areas, hidden from typical trial-averaged analyses and revealed only when considering the passage of time within each experimental session. Knowledge of this cognitive factor was critical in elucidating how sensory signals and the internal state together contribute to the decision-making process.

scholarly journals Chronic stress alters neural activity in medial prefrontal cortex during retrieval of extinction

Neuroscience ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 174 ◽  
pp. 115-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.A. Wilber ◽  
A.G. Walker ◽  
C.J. Southwood ◽  
M.R. Farrell ◽  
G.L. Lin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Chronic Stress ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Neural Activity

scholarly journals The Rat Medial Prefrontal Cortex Exhibits Flexible Neural Activity States during the Performance of an Odor Span Task

eNeuro ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. ENEURO.0424-18.2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuela De Falco ◽  
Lei An ◽  
Ninglei Sun ◽  
Andrew J. Roebuck ◽  
Quentin Greba ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Span Task ◽  
Odor Span

scholarly journals A comparison of neural responses in the primary auditory cortex, amygdala, and medial prefrontal cortex of cats during auditory discrimination tasks

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (3) ◽  
pp. 785-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenling Zhao ◽  
Lanlan Ma ◽  
Yifei Wang ◽  
Ling Qin
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Temporal Patterns ◽  
Auditory Discrimination ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Behavioral Choice ◽  
Behavioral Choices

Discriminating biologically relevant sounds is crucial for survival. The neurophysiological mechanisms that mediate this process must register both the reward significance and the physical parameters of acoustic stimuli. Previous experiments have revealed that the primary function of the auditory cortex (AC) is to provide a neural representation of the acoustic parameters of sound stimuli. However, how the brain associates acoustic signals with reward remains unresolved. The amygdala (AMY) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) play keys role in emotion and learning, but it is unknown whether AMY and mPFC neurons are involved in sound discrimination or how the roles of AMY and mPFC neurons differ from those of AC neurons. To examine this, we recorded neural activity in the primary auditory cortex (A1), AMY, and mPFC of cats while they performed a Go/No-go task to discriminate sounds with different temporal patterns. We found that the activity of A1 neurons faithfully coded the temporal patterns of sound stimuli; this activity was not affected by the cats’ behavioral choices. The neural representation of stimulus patterns decreased in the AMY, but the neural activity increased when the cats were preparing to discriminate the sound stimuli and waiting for reward. Neural activity in the mPFC did not represent sound patterns, but it showed a clear association with reward and was modulated by the cats’ behavioral choices. Our results indicate that the initial auditory representation in A1 is gradually transformed into a stimulus–reward association in the AMY and mPFC to ultimately generate a behavioral choice. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We compared the characteristics of neural activities of primary auditory cortex (A1), amygdala (AMY), and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) while cats were performing the same auditory discrimination task. Our results show that there is a gradual transformation of the neural code from a faithful temporal representation of the stimulus in A1, which is insensitive to behavioral choices, to an association with the predictive reward in AMY and mPFC, which, to some extent, is correlated with the animal’s behavioral choice.

Network Resets in Medial Prefrontal Cortex Mark the Onset of Behavioral Uncertainty

Science ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 338 (6103) ◽  
pp. 135-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattias P. Karlsson ◽  
Dougal G. R. Tervo ◽  
Alla Y. Karpova
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Internal State ◽  
Prior Belief ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
The World ◽  
Network Switches ◽  
Behavioral Uncertainty

Regions within the prefrontal cortex are thought to process beliefs about the world, but little is known about the circuit dynamics underlying the formation and modification of these beliefs. Using a task that permits dissociation between the activity encoding an animal’s internal state and that encoding aspects of behavior, we found that transient increases in the volatility of activity in the rat medial prefrontal cortex accompany periods when an animal’s belief is modified after an environmental change. Activity across the majority of sampled neurons underwent marked, abrupt, and coordinated changes when prior belief was abandoned in favor of exploration of alternative strategies. These dynamics reflect network switches to a state of instability, which diminishes over the period of exploration as new stable representations are formed.

scholarly journals A thalamocortical circuit for updating action-outcome associations

eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginie Fresno ◽  
Shauna L Parkes ◽  
Angélique Faugère ◽  
Etienne Coutureau ◽  
Mathieu Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Orbitofrontal Cortex ◽  
Instrumental Performance ◽  
Adaptive Responding ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Adaptive Decision Making ◽  
Cardinal Feature ◽  
Outcome Devaluation

The ability to flexibly use knowledge is one cardinal feature of goal-directed behaviors. We recently showed that thalamocortical and corticothalamic pathways connecting the medial prefrontal cortex and the mediodorsal thalamus (MD) contribute to adaptive decision-making (Alcaraz et al., 2018). In this study, we examined the impact of disconnecting the MD from its other main cortical target, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in a task assessing outcome devaluation after initial instrumental training and after reversal of action-outcome contingencies. Crossed MD and OFC lesions did not impair instrumental performance. Using the same approach, we found however that disconnecting the OFC from its other main thalamic afferent, the submedius nucleus, produced a specific impairment in adaptive responding following action-outcome reversal. Altogether, this suggests that multiple thalamocortical circuits may act synergistically to achieve behaviorally relevant functions.

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