scholarly journals Human subthalamic nucleus activity during non-motor decision making

eLife ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baltazar A Zavala ◽  
Anthony I Jang ◽  
Kareem A Zaghloul
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Basal Ganglia ◽  
Subthalamic Nucleus ◽  
Motor Function ◽  
Beta Band ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Motor Actions ◽  
Shed Light

Recent studies have implicated the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in decisions that involve inhibiting movements. Many of the decisions that we make in our daily lives, however, do not involve any motor actions. We studied non-motor decision making by recording intraoperative STN and prefrontal cortex (PFC) electrophysiology as participants perform a novel task that required them to decide whether to encode items into working memory. During all encoding trials, beta band (15–30 Hz) activity decreased in the STN and PFC, and this decrease was progressively enhanced as more items were stored into working memory. Crucially, the STN and lateral PFC beta decrease was significantly attenuated during the trials in which participants were instructed not to encode the presented stimulus. These changes were associated with increase lateral PFC-STN coherence and altered STN neuronal spiking. Our results shed light on why states of altered basal ganglia activity disrupt both motor function and cognition.

scholarly journals Recent advances in understanding the role of the basal ganglia

F1000Research ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Simonyan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Basal Ganglia ◽  
Procedural Learning ◽  
Voluntary Movements ◽  
Subcortical Structure ◽  
Functional Importance ◽  
Motor Behaviors ◽  
Simultaneous Inhibition

The basal ganglia are a complex subcortical structure that is principally involved in the selection and implementation of purposeful actions in response to external and internal cues. The basal ganglia set the pattern for facilitation of voluntary movements and simultaneous inhibition of competing or interfering movements. In addition, the basal ganglia are involved in the control of a wide variety of non-motor behaviors, spanning emotions, language, decision making, procedural learning, and working memory. This review presents a comparative overview of classic and contemporary models of basal ganglia organization and functional importance, including their increased integration with cortical and cerebellar structures.

scholarly journals Making Working Memory Work: A Computational Model of Learning in the Prefrontal Cortex and Basal Ganglia

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall C. O'Reilly ◽  
Michael J. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Basal Ganglia ◽  
Computational Model ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Subcortical Structures ◽  
Credit Assignment ◽  
Gating Mechanism

The prefrontal cortex has long been thought to subserve both working memory (the holding of information online for processing) and executive functions (deciding how to manipulate working memory and perform processing). Although many computational models of working memory have been developed, the mechanistic basis of executive function remains elusive, often amounting to a homunculus. This article presents an attempt to deconstruct this homunculus through powerful learning mechanisms that allow a computational model of the prefrontal cortex to control both itself and other brain areas in a strategic, task-appropriate manner. These learning mechanisms are based on subcortical structures in the midbrain, basal ganglia, and amygdala, which together form an actor-critic architecture. The critic system learns which prefrontal representations are task relevant and trains the actor, which in turn provides a dynamic gating mechanism for controlling working memory updating. Computationally, the learning mechanism is designed to simultaneously solve the temporal and structural credit assignment problems. The model's performance compares favorably with standard backpropagation-based temporal learning mechanisms on the challenging 1-2-AX working memory task and other benchmark working memory tasks.

scholarly journals Exploring the Inner Workings of Neuron Circuits That Exhibit Persistent Activity To Explain How Working Memory and Executive Function Are Implemented in The Brain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Gomez
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Executive Function ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Persistent Activity ◽  
Storage Mechanism ◽  
Minimum Number ◽  
Task Processing ◽  
The Brain

In this research we explore in detail how a phenomenon called sustained persistent activity is achieved by circuits of interconnected neurons. Persistent activity is a phenomenon that has been extensively studied (Papoutsi et al. 2013; Kaminski et. al. 2017; McCormick et al. 2003; Rahman, and Berger, 2011). Persistent activity consists in neuron circuits whose spiking activity remains even after the initial stimuli are removed. Persistent activity has been found in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and has been correlated to working memory and decision making (Clayton E. Curtis and Daeyeol Lee, 2010). We go beyond the explanation of how persistent activity happens and show how arrangements of those basic circuits encode and store data and are used to perform more elaborated tasks and computations. The purpose of the model we propose here is to describe the minimum number of neurons and their interconnections required to explain persistent activity and how this phenomenon is actually a fast storage mechanism required for implementing working memory, task processing and decision making.

scholarly journals Dissociation Of Working Memory from Decision Making within the Human Prefrontal Cortex

1998 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 428-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Bechara ◽  
Hanna Damasio ◽  
Daniel Tranel ◽  
Steven W. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex

Contributions of the Prefrontal Cortex and Basal Ganglia to Set Shifting

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 472-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M. Ravizza ◽  
Michael A. Ciranni
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Basal Ganglia ◽  
Cognitive Deficits ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Response Competition ◽  
Set Shifting ◽  
Working Memory Load ◽  
Younger Adults

Impairments of set shifting have been associated with damage to both the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and to the basal ganglia. The purpose of these experiments was to determine whether damage to the PFC was associated with shifting impairments per se or whether any switching deficits could be attributed to a reduction of working memory capacity. In contrast, shifting impairments were expected for Parkinson patients regardless of memory load, given that these patients seem to have no cognitive deficits other than when having to shift set. To vary working memory demands, a cue to the relevant dimension (letter or shape) in an odd-man-out task was presented or withheld. Pathology to prefrontal areas associated with normal aging was not linked to shifting deficits when working memory load was reduced in a comparison of older and younger adults (Experiment 1). In contrast, set-shifting abilities were still impaired for stroke patients with prefrontal damage regardless of working memory demands (Experiment 2). Parkinson patients were relatively unimpaired on this task (Experiment 2), but began to display shifting deficits when response competition was present in the display (Experiment 3).

Prefrontal cortex-basal ganglia circuits in the rat: Involvement of ventral pallidum and subthalamic nucleus

Synapse ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Maurice ◽  
Jean-Michel Deniau ◽  
Annie Menetrey ◽  
Jacques Glowinski ◽  
Anne-Marie Thierry
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Basal Ganglia ◽  
Subthalamic Nucleus ◽  
Ventral Pallidum

scholarly journals Geometry of neural computation unifies working memory and planning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Ehrlich ◽  
John D. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Real World ◽  
Recurrent Neural Networks ◽  
Neural Computation ◽  
Neural Data ◽  
The Brain

Real-world tasks require coordination of working memory, decision making, and planning, yet these cognitive functions have disproportionately been studied as independent modular processes in the brain. Here we propose that contingency representations, defined as mappings for how future behaviors depend on upcoming events, can unify working memory and planning computations. We designed a task capable of disambiguating distinct types of representations. Our experiments revealed that human behavior is consistent with contingency representations, and not with traditional sensory models of working memory. In task-optimized recurrent neural networks we investigated possible circuit mechanisms for contingency representations and found that these representations can explain neurophysiological observations from prefrontal cortex during working memory tasks. Finally, we generated falsifiable predictions for neural data to identify contingency representations in neural data and to dissociate different models of working memory. Our findings characterize a neural representational strategy that can unify working memory, planning, and context-dependent decision making.

Prefrontal Cortex

2017 ◽  
pp. 75-84
Author(s):  
Xiao-Jing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Pyramidal Neurons ◽  
Synaptic Integration ◽  
Input Output ◽  
Cortical Areas ◽  
Inhibitory Circuit ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
The Brain

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) circuits are characterized by several distinct features. First, the input–output connections of a PFC circuit with the rest of the brain are extraordinarily extensive. In the primates, pyramidal neurons in PFC are greatly more spinous than in the primary sensory areas, so they have a much larger capacity for synaptic integration. Second, PFC areas are endowed with strong intrinsic recurrent connections that are sufficient to generate reverberatory activity underlying working memory and decision-making. Third, excitation and inhibition are balanced dynamically. Unlike early sensory cortical areas, in the frontal areas of both monkey and mouse, the synaptic inhibitory circuit is predominated by GABAergic cell subclasses that are dedicated to controlling inputs to, rather than outputs from, pyramidal neurons, likely reflecting the functional demand of selectively gating input pathways into the PFC in accordance with the behavioral context and goals.

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