Research Group Comparative Neuroscience, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Brenneckestraße 6, 39118 Magdeburg, Germany; Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Universitätsplatz 2, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany.
Research Group Comparative Neuroscience, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Brenneckestraße 6, 39118 Magdeburg, Germany; Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Universitätsplatz 2, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany.
Brain Res. 2020 Jul 1;1738:146775. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2020.146775. Epub 2020 Mar 16.
Behavioral flexibility allows animals to cope with changing situations, for example, to execute different actions to the same stimulus to achieve specific goals in different situations. The selection of the appropriate action in a given situation hinges on the previously learned associations between stimuli, actions, and outcomes. We showed in our recent study that early auditory cortex of nonhuman primates contributes to the selection of the actions to sounds by representing the associations between sounds and actions. That is, neurons in auditory cortex respond differently to a given sound when it signals different actions that are required to obtain a reward. Here, using the same monkey and the same tasks, we investigated whether the ventrolateral part of prefrontal cortex also represents such audiomotor associations as well as whether and how these representations differ from those in auditory cortex. Mirroring auditory cortex, neuronal responses to a given sound in prefrontal cortex changed with audiomotor associations, and the neuronal responses were largest when the sound signaled a no-go response. These findings suggest that prefrontal cortex also represents audiomotor associations and thus contributes to the selection of the actions to sounds during goal-directed behavior. The neuronal activity related to audiomotor associations started later in prefrontal cortex than in auditory cortex, suggesting that the representations in prefrontal cortex may originate in auditory cortex or in earlier stages of the auditory system.
行为灵活性使动物能够应对不断变化的情况，例如，针对相同的刺激执行不同的动作，以在不同情况下实现特定目标。在给定情况下选择适当的动作取决于刺激、动作和结果之间先前习得的关联。我们在最近的研究中表明，非人类灵长类动物的早期听觉皮层有助于通过表示声音与动作之间的关联来选择对声音的动作。也就是说，当给定的声音表示获得奖励所需的不同动作时，听觉皮层中的神经元会对其做出不同的反应。在这里，我们使用相同的猴子和相同的任务，研究了前额叶皮层的腹外侧部分是否也代表了这种听觉运动关联，以及这些代表是否以及如何与听觉皮层中的代表不同。与听觉皮层类似，前额叶皮层中神经元对给定声音的反应随听觉运动关联而变化，当声音信号表示禁止反应时，神经元的反应最大。这些发现表明，前额叶皮层也代表听觉运动关联，从而有助于在目标导向行为中选择对声音的动作。与听觉运动关联相关的神经元活动在前额叶皮层中的出现时间晚于听觉皮层，这表明前额叶皮层中的代表可能起源于听觉皮层或听觉系统的早期阶段。
