Distinct relationships of parietal and prefrontal cortices to evidence accumulation.

ABSTRACT: Gradual accumulation of evidence is thought to be fundamental for decision-making, and its neural correlates have been found in several brain regions. Here we develop a generalizable method to measure tuning curves that specify the relationship between neural responses and mentally accumulated evidence, and apply it to distinguish the encoding of decision variables in posterior parietal cortex and prefrontal cortex (frontal orienting fields, FOF). We recorded the firing rates of neurons in posterior parietal cortex and FOF from rats performing a perceptual decision-making task. Classical analyses uncovered correlates of accumulating evidence, similar to previous observations in primates and also similar across the two regions. However, tuning curve assays revealed that while the posterior

SUBMITTER: Hanks TD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4835184 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature