Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Medical Center Blvd, Winston-Salem, NC, 27157, USA.
Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37240, USA.
Nat Commun. 2018 Sep 17;9(1):3790. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-06226-w.
The functional organization of the primate prefrontal cortex has been a matter of debate with some models speculating dorso-ventral and rostro-caudal specialization while others suggesting that information is represented dynamically by virtue of plasticity across the entire prefrontal cortex. To address functional properties and capacity for plasticity, we recorded from different prefrontal sub-regions and analyzed changes in responses following training in a spatial working memory task. This training induces more pronounced changes in anterior prefrontal regions, including increased firing rate during the delay period, selectivity, reliability, information for stimuli, representation of whether a test stimulus matched the remembered cue or not, and variability and correlation between neurons. Similar results are obtained for discrete subdivisions or when treating position along the anterior-posterior axis as a continuous variable. Our results reveal that anterior aspects of the lateral prefrontal cortex of non-human primates possess greater plasticity based on task demands.
灵长类动物前额皮质的功能组织一直是一个有争议的问题，一些模型推测存在背腹侧和头尾侧专门化，而另一些模型则认为信息是通过整个前额皮质的可塑性动态表示的。为了研究功能特性和可塑性能力，我们在前额皮质的不同亚区进行了记录，并分析了在空间工作记忆任务训练后反应的变化。这种训练在前额皮质的前区引起了更明显的变化，包括在延迟期间增加的放电率、选择性、可靠性、对刺激的信息、表示测试刺激是否与记忆线索匹配、以及神经元之间的变异性和相关性。对于离散的细分，或者将沿着前后轴的位置视为连续变量时，也会得到类似的结果。我们的结果表明，基于任务需求，非人类灵长类动物的外侧前额皮质的前部具有更大的可塑性。
