Abstract Context Representations in Primate Amygdala and Prefrontal Cortex.

ABSTRACT: Neurons in prefrontal cortex (PFC) encode rules, goals, and other abstract information thought to underlie cognitive, emotional, and behavioral flexibility. Here we show that the amygdala, a brain area traditionally thought to mediate emotions, also encodes abstract information that could underlie this flexibility. Monkeys performed a task in which stimulus-reinforcement contingencies varied between two sets of associations, each defining a context. Reinforcement prediction required identifying a stimulus and knowing the current context. Behavioral evidence indicated that monkeys utilized this information to perform inference and adjust their behavior. Neural representations in both amygdala and PFC reflected the linked sets of associations implicitly defining each context, a process requi

SUBMITTER: Saez A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4574873 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature