School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, China; IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, China; Tsinghua-Peking Joint Center for Life Sciences, 100084 Beijing, China; School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, China.
IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, China; Tsinghua-Peking Joint Center for Life Sciences, 100084 Beijing, China; School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, China.
Cell Rep. 2022 Aug 16;40(7):111190. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111190.
Despite essentially symmetric structures in mammalian brains, the left and right hemispheres do not contribute equally to certain cognitive functions. How both hemispheres interact to cause this asymmetry remains unclear. Here, we study this question in the anterior lateral motor cortex (ALM) of mice performing five versions of a tactile-based decision-making task with a short-term memory (STM) component. Unilateral inhibition of ALM produces variable behavioral deficits across tasks, with the left, right, or both ALMs playing critical roles in STM. Neural activity and its encoding capability are similar across hemispheres, despite that only one hemisphere dominates in behavior. Inhibition of the dominant ALM disrupts encoding capability in the non-dominant ALM, but not vice versa. Variable behavioral deficits are predicted by the influence on contralateral activity across sessions, mice, and tasks. Together, these results reveal that the left and right ALM interact asymmetrically, leading to their differential contributions to STM.
尽管哺乳动物大脑的结构基本对称，但左右半球在某些认知功能上的贡献并不均等。左右半球如何相互作用导致这种不对称性尚不清楚。在这里，我们在执行具有短期记忆 (STM) 成分的五种基于触觉的决策任务的小鼠前外侧运动皮层 (ALM) 中研究了这个问题。单侧 ALM 的抑制在不同任务中产生可变的行为缺陷，左、右或两者的 ALM 在 STM 中起着关键作用。尽管只有一个半球在行为中占主导地位，但两个半球的神经活动及其编码能力相似。对优势半球的抑制会破坏非优势半球的编码能力，但反之则不会。通过跨会话、小鼠和任务对对侧活动的影响，可以预测可变的行为缺陷。总之，这些结果表明，左、右 ALM 以不对称的方式相互作用，导致它们对 STM 的不同贡献。
