Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, 27157, USA.
Center for Neuropsychiatric Diseases, Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, Jiangxi, China.
Nat Commun. 2022 Jan 10;13(1):90. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-27695-6.
Training in working memory tasks is associated with lasting changes in prefrontal cortical activity. To assess the neural activity changes induced by training, we recorded single units, multi-unit activity (MUA) and local field potentials (LFP) with chronic electrode arrays implanted in the prefrontal cortex of two monkeys, throughout the period they were trained to perform cognitive tasks. Mastering different task phases was associated with distinct changes in neural activity, which included recruitment of larger numbers of neurons, increases or decreases of their firing rate, changes in the correlation structure between neurons, and redistribution of power across LFP frequency bands. In every training phase, changes induced by the actively learned task were also observed in a control task, which remained the same across the training period. Our results reveal how learning to perform cognitive tasks induces plasticity of prefrontal cortical activity, and how activity changes may generalize between tasks.
工作记忆任务的训练与前额叶皮层活动的持久变化有关。为了评估训练引起的神经活动变化，我们使用植入两只猴子前额叶皮层的慢性电极阵列记录了单个单元、多单元活动（MUA）和局部场电位（LFP），记录时间贯穿它们接受认知任务训练的整个过程。掌握不同的任务阶段与神经活动的明显变化有关，包括招募更多数量的神经元，其放电率的增加或减少，神经元之间相关性结构的变化，以及 LFP 频带之间的功率重新分配。在每个训练阶段，主动学习任务引起的变化也在一个保持不变的对照任务中观察到。我们的研究结果揭示了学习执行认知任务如何诱导前额叶皮层活动的可塑性，以及活动变化如何在任务之间泛化。
