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Petruo V, Takacs A, Mückschel M, Hommel B, Beste C. Multi-level decoding of task sets in neurophysiological data during cognitive flexibility. iScience 2021; 24:103502. [PMID: 34934921 PMCID: PMC8654636 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.103502] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2021] [Revised: 07/27/2021] [Accepted: 11/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Cognitive flexibility is essential to achieve higher level goals. Cognitive theories assume that the activation/deactivation of goals and task rules is central to understand cognitive flexibility. However, how this activation/deactivation dynamic is implemented on a neurophysiological level is unclear. Using EEG-based multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) methods, we show that activation of relevant information occurs parallel in time at multiple levels in the neurophysiological signal containing aspects of stimulus-related processing, response selection, and motor response execution, and relates to different brain regions. The intensity with which task sets are activated and processed dynamically decreases and increases. The temporal stability of these activations could, however, hardly explain behavioral performance. Instead, task set deactivation processes associated with left orbitofrontal regions and inferior parietal regions selectively acting on motor response task sets are relevant. The study shows how propositions from cognitive theories stressing the importance task set activation/deactivation during cognitive flexibility are implemented on a neurophysiological level. Stimulus-related, motor, and response selection aspects of task set were decoded Activation of task rule information occurs at multiple neurophysiological levels Activation and deactivation of rule sets contributes to cognitive flexibility
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Affiliation(s)
- Vanessa Petruo
- Brain and Creativity Institute, Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California, 3620A McClintock Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Adam Takacs
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 01309 Dresden, Germany
| | - Moritz Mückschel
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 01309 Dresden, Germany
| | - Bernhard Hommel
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 01309 Dresden, Germany.,Cognitive Psychology Unit & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, C-2-S LIBC P.O. Box 9600, Leiden, Netherlands.,Cognitive Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Qianfoshan Campus, No. 88 East Wenhua Road, Lixia District, Ji'nan 250014, China
| | - Christian Beste
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 01309 Dresden, Germany.,Cognitive Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Qianfoshan Campus, No. 88 East Wenhua Road, Lixia District, Ji'nan 250014, China
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Munoz F, Jensen G, Kennedy BC, Alkan Y, Terrace HS, Ferrera VP. Learned Representation of Implied Serial Order in Posterior Parietal Cortex. Sci Rep 2020; 10:9386. [PMID: 32523062 PMCID: PMC7287075 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-65838-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2019] [Accepted: 05/08/2020] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Monkeys can learn the implied ranking of pairs of images drawn from an ordered set, despite never seeing all of the images simultaneously and without explicit spatial or temporal cues. We recorded the activity of posterior parietal cortex (including lateral intraparietal area LIP) neurons while monkeys learned 7-item transitive inference (TI) lists with 2 items presented on each trial. Behavior and neuronal activity were significantly influenced by the ordinal relationship of the stimulus pairs, specifically symbolic distance (the difference in rank) and joint rank (the sum of the ranks). Symbolic distance strongly predicted decision accuracy and learning rate. An effect of joint rank on performance was found nested within the symbolic distance effect. Across the population of neurons, there was significant modulation of firing correlated with the relative ranks of the two stimuli presented on each trial. Neurons exhibited selectivity for stimulus rank during learning, but not before or after. The observed behavior is poorly explained by associative or reward mechanisms, and appears more consistent with a mental workspace model in which implied serial order is mapped within a spatial framework. The neural data suggest that posterior parietal cortex supports serial learning by representing information about the ordinal relationship of the stimuli presented during a given trial.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fabian Munoz
- Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, 10032, USA.,Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA
| | - Greg Jensen
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA.,Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA
| | - Benjamin C Kennedy
- Department of Neurosurgery, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, 10032, USA.,Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Yelda Alkan
- Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, 10032, USA.,Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA
| | - Herbert S Terrace
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA.,Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, 10032, USA
| | - Vincent P Ferrera
- Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, 10032, USA. .,Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA. .,Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, 10032, USA.
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Spatial eye-hand coordination during bimanual reaching is not systematically coded in either LIP or PRR. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2018; 115:E3817-E3826. [PMID: 29610356 PMCID: PMC5910835 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1718267115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/11/2023] Open
Abstract
When we reach for something, we also look at it. If we reach for two objects at once, one with each hand, we look first at one and then the other. It is not known which brain areas underlie this coordination. We studied two parietal areas known to be involved in eye and arm movements. Neither area was sensitive to the order in which the targets were looked at. This implies that coordinated saccades are driven by downstream areas and not by the parietal cortex as is commonly assumed. We often orient to where we are about to reach. Spatial and temporal correlations in eye and arm movements may depend on the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Spatial representations of saccade and reach goals preferentially activate cells in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) and the parietal reach region (PRR), respectively. With unimanual reaches, eye and arm movement patterns are highly stereotyped. This makes it difficult to study the neural circuits involved in coordination. Here, we employ bimanual reaching to two different targets. Animals naturally make a saccade first to one target and then the other, resulting in different patterns of limb–gaze coordination on different trials. Remarkably, neither LIP nor PRR cells code which target the eyes will move to first. These results suggest that the parietal cortex plays at best only a permissive role in some aspects of eye–hand coordination and makes the role of LIP in saccade generation unclear.
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Wolff N, Mückschel M, Beste C. Neural mechanisms and functional neuroanatomical networks during memory and cue-based task switching as revealed by residue iteration decomposition (RIDE) based source localization. Brain Struct Funct 2017; 222:3819-3831. [DOI: 10.1007/s00429-017-1437-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 55] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2016] [Accepted: 04/28/2017] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
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