Journal Article

Task-driven intra- and interarea communications in primate cerebral cortex

Deco, Gustavo, Martinez-Garcia, Marina, Nácher, Verónica, Luna, Rogelio, Romo, Ranulfo, Campo, Adrià Tauste

2015

Overview

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. Significance How do multiple neurons communicate to solve a cognitive task? To answer this question, we investigate spike-train directional correlations across five primate cortical areas simultaneously recorded during a somatosensory discrimination task. Correlations are inferred using a nonparametric procedure that models spike trains as Markovian binary series and dynamically estimates the directed information between every neuron pair at different delays. We find that information processing during the discrimination task can be described by intra- and interarea decision-driven delayed correlations, which are no longer found when a monkey receives both stimuli but does not perform the task.

• Publisher: National Academy of Sciences,National Acad Sciences
• Subject: Algorithms / Animal cognition / Animals / Bayes Theorem / Bayesian analysis / Biological Sciences / Brain / Brain Mapping / cerebral cortex / Cerebral Cortex - anatomy & histology / Cerebral Cortex - cytology / Cerebral Cortex - physiology / cognition / Cognition - physiology / Correlation analysis / Decision making / Decision Making - physiology / Discrimination, Psychological - physiology / Information processing / Information theory / Large-scale cortical networks / Macaca mulatta - anatomy & histology / Macaca mulatta - physiology / Macaca mulatta - psychology / Male / Models, Neurological / monkeys / Monkeys & apes / Monte Carlo Method / Nerve Net - anatomy & histology / Nerve Net - cytology / Nerve Net - physiology / Neurons / Neurons - physiology / Physical Sciences / Psychomotor Performance - physiology / Somatosensory Cortex - anatomy & histology / Somatosensory Cortex - cytology / Somatosensory Cortex - physiology / Spike-train analysis / Vibrotactile discrimination