Decision making, performance and outcome monitoring in frontal cortical areas

Neural correlations during a cognitive task are central to study brain information processing and computation. However, they have been poorly analyzed due to the difficulty of recording simultaneous single neurons during task performance. In the present work, we quantified neural directional correlations using spike trains that were simultaneously recorded in sensory, premotor, and motor cortical areas of two monkeys during a somatosensory discrimination task. Upon modeling spike trains as binary time series, we used a nonparametric Bayesian method to estimate pairwise directional correlations between many pairs of neurons throughout different stages of the task, namely, perception, working memory, decision making, and motor report. We find that solving the task involves feedforward and feedback correlation paths linking sensory and motor areas during certain task intervals. Specifically, information is communicated by task-driven neural correlations that are significantly delayed across secondary somatosensory cortex, premotor, and motor areas when decision making takes place. Crucially, when sensory comparison is no longer requested for task performance, a major proportion of directional correlations consistently vanish across all cortical areas.

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A somatosensory-to-motor cascade of cortical areas engaged in perceptual decision making during tactile pattern discrimination

Human Brain Mapping ◽

10.1002/hbm.23446 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 38 (3) ◽

pp. 1172-1181 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Yiwen Li Hegner ◽

Axel Lindner ◽

Christoph Braun

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Pattern Discrimination ◽

Perceptual Decision Making ◽

Perceptual Decision ◽

Cortical Areas ◽

Tactile Pattern

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Cognitive experience alters cortical involvement in navigation decisions

10.1101/2021.12.10.472106 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Christopher D Harvey ◽

Charlotte Arlt ◽

Roberto Barroso-Luque ◽

Shinichiro Kira ◽

Carissa A Bruno ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Neural Activity ◽

Calcium Imaging ◽

Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽

Retrosplenial Cortex ◽

Neuron Activity ◽

Decision Task ◽

Simple Task ◽

Critical Determinant ◽

Cortical Areas

The neural correlates of decision-making have been investigated extensively, and recent work aims to identify under what conditions cortex is actually necessary for making accurate decisions. We discovered that mice with distinct cognitive experiences, beyond sensory and motor learning, use different cortical areas and neural activity patterns to solve the same task, revealing past learning as a critical determinant of whether cortex is necessary for decision-making. We used optogenetics and calcium imaging to study the necessity and neural activity of multiple cortical areas in mice with different training histories. Posterior parietal cortex and retrosplenial cortex were mostly dispensable for accurate decision-making in mice performing a simple navigation-based decision task. In contrast, these areas were essential for the same simple task when mice were previously trained on complex tasks with delay periods or association switches. Multi-area calcium imaging showed that, in mice with complex-task experience, single-neuron activity had higher selectivity and neuron-neuron correlations were weaker, leading to codes with higher task information. Therefore, past experience sets the landscape for how future tasks are solved by the brain and is a key factor in determining whether cortical areas have a causal role in decision-making.

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Routine Outcome Monitoring and Clinical Decision-Making in Forensic Psychiatry Based on the Instrument for Forensic Treatment Evaluation

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0160787 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 11 (8) ◽

pp. e0160787 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Frida C. A. van der Veeken ◽

Jacques Lucieer ◽

Stefan Bogaerts

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Forensic Psychiatry ◽

Clinical Decision Making ◽

Clinical Decision ◽

Treatment Evaluation ◽

Routine Outcome Monitoring ◽

Outcome Monitoring ◽

Forensic Treatment

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Correction: Routine Outcome Monitoring and Clinical Decision-Making in Forensic Psychiatry Based on the Instrument for Forensic Treatment Evaluation

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0200868 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 13 (7) ◽

pp. e0200868

Author(s):

Frida C. A. van der Veeken ◽

Jacques Lucieer ◽

Stefan Bogaerts

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Forensic Psychiatry ◽

Clinical Decision Making ◽

Clinical Decision ◽

Treatment Evaluation ◽

Routine Outcome Monitoring ◽

Outcome Monitoring ◽

Forensic Treatment

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Prefrontal Cortex

Handbook of Brain Microcircuits ◽

10.1093/med/9780190636111.003.0007 ◽

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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