RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Stimulus Selectivity in Dorsal and Ventral Prefrontal Cortex after Training in Working Memory Tasks
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 6266
OP 6276
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.6798-10.2011
VO 31
IS 17
A1 Travis Meyer
A1 Xue-Lian Qi
A1 Terrence R. Stanford
A1 Christos Constantinidis
YR 2011
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/17/6266.abstract
AB The prefrontal cortex is known to represent different types of information in working memory. Contrasting theories propose that the dorsal and ventral regions of the lateral prefrontal cortex are innately specialized for the representation of spatial and nonspatial information, respectively (Goldman-Rakic, 1996), or that the two regions are shaped by the demands of cognitive tasks imposed on them (Miller, 2000). To resolve this issue, we recorded from neurons in the two regions, before and at multiple stages of training monkeys on visual working memory tasks. Before training, substantial functional differences were present between the two regions. Dorsal prefrontal cortex exhibited higher overall responsiveness to visual stimuli and higher selectivity for spatial information. After training, stimulus selectivity generally decreased, although dorsal prefrontal cortex retained higher spatial selectivity regardless of task performed. Ventral prefrontal cortex appeared to be affected to a greater extent by the nature of the task. Our results indicate that regional specialization for stimulus selectivity is present in the primate prefrontal cortex regardless of training. Dorsal areas of the prefrontal cortex are inherently organized to represent spatial information, and training has little influence on this spatial bias. Ventral areas are biased toward nonspatial information, although they are more influenced by training both in terms of activation and changes in stimulus selectivity.