Prefrontal Cortex Flashcards
What is the adaptive coding model?
In the adaptive coding model, the central idea is that neurons throughout large regions of prefrontal cortex have the capacity to code many different types of information.
In any given task context, neurons adapt to preserve only information of relevance to current behaviour
At the same time, they support the representation of related information elsewhere in the brain, including coding of relevant stimuli, responses, representations in semantic memory and reward states.
What is adaptive coding based off of?
This view links previous accounts of prefrontal function that are based on concepts of working memory, selective attention and control.
What is the central idea of adaptive coding?
The central idea is that, throughout much of prefrontal cortex — certainly including much of the lateral surface — the response properties of single neurons are highly adaptable. Any given cell has the potential to be driven by many different kinds of input — perhaps through the dense interconnections that exist within the prefrontal cortex.
How does adaptive coding allow the PFC to be a global workspace?
In a particular task context, many cells become tuned to code information that is specifically relevant to this task. In this sense, the prefrontal cortex acts as a global workspace or working memory onto which can be written those facts that are needed in a current mental program.
How do we know that adaptive coding happens in mammalian brains?
this adaptability that is reflected in the large proportions of frontal neurons that are found to code events in whatever arbitrary task a monkey carries out (Duncan and Miller,2002). The same adaptability is reflected in the imaging finding that the same overall patterns of prefrontal recruitment are associated with widely different cognitive demands (Woolgar et al.,2011).
How are objects and location encoded in the lateral PFC?
Throughout much of the lateral prefrontal cortex, cells with variable potential for coding location and object information are closely intermingled. When object information must be retained in working memory (upper panel), object tuning across the population is enhanced, whereas location tuning is weakened. When location information must be retained, this situation is reversed.
How does object and location tuning allow for tasks to be completed?
As a whole, the population produces a distributed representation, which selectively favours information of current task relevance.
