Event Abstract

Back to Event

The variance of neuronal activity in dorsal premotor area is predictive of behavioral performance: The influence of trial history in decision making

Encarni Marcos1*, Pierpaolo Pani2, Emiliano Brunamonti2, Stefano Ferraina2 and Paul F. Verschure3
  • 1 Universitat Pompeu Fabra, SPECS, Technology Department, Spain
  • 2 Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Italy
  • 3 Universitat Pompeu Fabra, ICREA Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Spain

In decision making information stemming from both memory and perception is integrated in the service of the goal oriented action of the agent. In a previous study, we have proposed that the behavior of the agent is biased by the temporal order of task specific events and that this biasing is achieved by a correct temporal chaining of the memory space [1]. The concrete neural mechanisms underlying this biasing have been, however, poorly investigated. Here, we study this issue by looking at the activity of neurons in the dorsal premotor area (PMd) of two macaque monkeys engaged in a countermanding reaching task. The countermanding task has been extensively used to study the ability to cancel a planned movement when an infrequent delayed stop signal appears. In this task, the probability of success depends both on optimal perception of the stop signal and on its time of presentation during reaction time (RT). Recent results have shown that the behavioral performance in a trial is also influenced by the temporal distance from the most recent Stop trial in the sequence [2]. In the present study, we investigate the neural mechanisms that lead to a change in the behavior during a current trial due to the recent trial history. We found no relationship between average firing rate of PMd neurons and performance or task history, i. e. whether a Go trial was preceded by a Stop or a Go trial. In contrast, we observed that the mean and variance of the RT can be accurately predicted from the across-trial variability of single unit activity, as measured by the variance of conditional expectation (VarCE) [3]. Our study indicates that, in the context of the countermanding task, the evidence provided by perception and memory is combined to make a decision and the former has an influence in the amplitude of the firing rate while the latter has an influence in the variability of the neural responses.

References

[1] Verschure, P. F., Voegtlin, T., Douglas, R. J. (2003). Environmentally mediated synergy between perception and behaviour in mobile robots. Nature. 425:620-624.

[2] Emeric, E. E., Brown, J. W., Boucher, L., Carpenter, R. H. S., Hanes, D. P., Harris, R., Logan, G. D., Mashru, R. N., Paré, M., Pouget, P., Stuphorn, V., Taylor, T. L., Schall, J. D. (2007). Influence of history on saccade countermanding performance in humans and macaque monkeys. Vision research. 47, 35-49.

[3] Churchland, A. K., Kiani, R., Chaudhuri, R., Wang, X. J., Pouget, A., Shadlen, M. N. (2011). Variance as a Signature of Neural Computations during Decision Making. Neuron. 69, 818-831

Keywords: goal oriented action, hand movement control, visuo-motor control

Conference: Neural Coding, Decision-Making & Integration in Time, Rauischholzhausen, Germany, 26 Apr - 29 Apr, 2012.

Presentation Type: Poster Presentation

Topic: Neural Coding, Decision-Making & Integration in Time

Citation: Marcos E, Pani P, Brunamonti E, Ferraina S and Verschure PF (2012). The variance of neuronal activity in dorsal premotor area is predictive of behavioral performance: The influence of trial history in decision making. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Neural Coding, Decision-Making & Integration in Time. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2012.86.00011

Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.

The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.

Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.

For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.

Received: 12 Jan 2012; Published Online: 16 Jan 2012.

* Correspondence: Mr. Encarni Marcos, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, SPECS, Technology Department, Barcelona, Spain, encarnacion.marcos@upf.edu