Instituto de Fisiología Celular-Neurociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México, D.F., Mexico.
Neuron. 2010 Apr 29;66(2):300-14. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.03.031.
Perceptual decisions arise from the activity of neurons distributed across brain circuits. But, decoding the mechanisms behind this cognitive operation across brain circuits has long posed a difficult problem. We recorded the neuronal activity of diverse cortical areas, while monkeys performed a vibrotactile discrimination task. We find that the encoding of the stimuli during the stimulus periods, working memory, and comparison periods is widely distributed across cortical areas. Notably, during the comparison and postponed decision report periods the activity of frontal brain circuits encode both the result of the sensory evaluation that corresponds to the monkey's possible choices and past information on which the decision is based. These results suggest that frontal lobe circuits are more engaged in the readout of sensory information from working memory, when it is required to be compared with other sensory inputs, than simply engaged in motor responses during this task.
感知决策源于分布在大脑回路中的神经元活动。但是，解码大脑回路中这种认知操作背后的机制长期以来一直是一个难题。我们记录了猴子在执行振动触觉辨别任务时的不同皮层区域的神经元活动。我们发现，在刺激期间、工作记忆期间和比较期间，刺激的编码是广泛分布在皮层区域的。值得注意的是，在比较和延迟决策报告期间，额叶脑回路的活动既编码了与猴子可能的选择相对应的感觉评估的结果，也编码了决策所依据的过去信息。这些结果表明，在需要将工作记忆中的感觉信息与其他感觉输入进行比较时，额叶回路比在执行该任务时简单地参与运动反应更积极地参与从工作记忆中读取感觉信息。
