Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota , Minneapolis, Minnesota.
J Neurophysiol. 2019 Jun 1;121(6):1981-2000. doi: 10.1152/jn.00793.2018. Epub 2019 Mar 20.
Current theories of deliberative decision making suggest that deliberative decisions arise from imagined simulations that require interactions between the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. In rodent navigation experiments, hippocampal theta sequences advance from the location of the rat ahead to the subsequent goal. To examine the role of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) on the hippocampus, we disrupted the mPFC with DREADDs (designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs). Using the Restaurant Row foraging task, we found that mPFC disruption resulted in decreased vicarious trial and error behavior, reduced the number of theta sequences, and impaired theta sequences in hippocampus. mPFC disruption led to larger changes in the initiation of the hippocampal theta sequences that represent the current location of the rat rather than to the later portions that represent the future outcomes. These data suggest that the mPFC likely provides an important component to the initiation of deliberative sequences and provides support for an episodic-future thinking, working memory interpretation of deliberation. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus interact during deliberative decision making. Disruption of the mPFC impaired hippocampal processes, including the local and nonlocal representations of space along each theta cycle and the initiation of hippocampal theta sequences, while sparing place cell firing characteristics and phase precession. mPFC disruption reduced the deliberative behavioral process vicarious trial and error and improved economic behaviors on this task.
当前的审慎决策理论表明，审慎决策源于需要前额叶皮层和海马体相互作用的想象模拟。在啮齿动物导航实验中，海马体的θ序列从大鼠的位置向前推进到后续的目标位置。为了研究内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）对海马体的作用，我们使用 DREADDs（专门由设计药物激活的设计受体）破坏 mPFC。通过使用餐厅排觅食任务，我们发现 mPFC 破坏导致替代试错行为减少，θ序列数量减少，并损害了海马体中的θ序列。mPFC 的破坏导致大鼠当前位置的海马体θ序列的起始发生更大的变化，而不是代表未来结果的后期部分。这些数据表明，mPFC 可能为审慎序列的启动提供了一个重要组成部分，并为对审慎的情景-未来思维、工作记忆解释提供了支持。内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）和海马体在审慎决策过程中相互作用。mPFC 的破坏损害了海马体的过程，包括每个θ周期的空间局部和非局部表示，以及海马体θ序列的启动，同时保留了位置细胞放电特征和相位超前。mPFC 的破坏减少了替代试错的审慎行为过程，并改善了这项任务上的经济行为。
