Cognitive strategies shift information from single neurons to populations in prefrontal cortex.

ABSTRACT: Neurons in primate lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) play a critical role in working memory (WM) and cognitive strategies. Consistent with adaptive coding models, responses of these neurons are not fixed but flexibly adjust on the basis of cognitive demands. However, little is known about how these adjustments affect population codes. Here, we investigated ensemble coding in LPFC while monkeys implemented different strategies in a WM task. Although single neurons were less tuned when monkeys used more stereotyped strategies, task information could still be accurately decoded from neural populations. This was due to changes in population codes that distributed information among a greater number of neurons, each contributing less to the overall population. Moreover, this shift occurred for ta

SUBMITTER: Chiang FK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8857053 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature