Concha-Miranda Miguel, Hartmann Konstantin, Reinhold Annika, Brecht Michael, Sanguinetti-Scheck Juan I
Neurosystems Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Eur J Neurosci. 2020 Nov;52(9):4127-4138. doi: 10.1111/ejn.14908. Epub 2020 Jul 31.
Rats have elaborate cognitive capacities for playing Hide & Seek. Playing Hide & Seek strongly engages medial prefrontal cortex and the activity of prefrontal cortex neurons reflects the structure of the game. We wondered if prefrontal neurons would also show a mirroring of play-related neural activity. Specifically, we asked how does the activity in the rat medial prefrontal cortex differ when the animal plays itself versus when it observes others playing. Consistent with our previous work, when the animal plays itself we observed medial prefrontal cortex activity that was sharply locked to game events. Observing play, however, did not lead to a comparable activation of rat medial prefrontal cortex. Firing rates during observing play were lower than during real play. The modulation of responses in medial prefrontal cortex by game events was strong during playing Hide & Seek, but weak during observing Hide & Seek. We conclude the rat prefrontal cortex does not mirror play events under our experimental conditions.
大鼠具有用于玩捉迷藏的复杂认知能力。玩捉迷藏会强烈激活内侧前额叶皮层，前额叶皮层神经元的活动反映了游戏的结构。我们想知道前额叶神经元是否也会表现出与玩耍相关的神经活动的镜像现象。具体而言，我们询问当动物自己玩耍与观察其他动物玩耍时，大鼠内侧前额叶皮层的活动有何不同。与我们之前的研究一致，当动物自己玩耍时，我们观察到内侧前额叶皮层的活动与游戏事件紧密相关。然而，观察玩耍并未导致大鼠内侧前额叶皮层出现类似的激活。观察玩耍期间的放电率低于实际玩耍期间。在玩捉迷藏时，内侧前额叶皮层的反应受游戏事件的调节很强，但在观察捉迷藏时则很弱。我们得出结论，在我们的实验条件下，大鼠前额叶皮层不会镜像玩耍事件。
