Prefrontal cortical plasticity during learning of cognitive tasks

Hua Tang, Mitchell R. Riley, Balbir Singh, Xue-Lian Qi, David T. Blake and Christos Constantinidis ()
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Hua Tang: Wake Forest School of Medicine
Mitchell R. Riley: Wake Forest School of Medicine
Balbir Singh: Wake Forest School of Medicine
Xue-Lian Qi: Wake Forest School of Medicine
David T. Blake: Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University
Christos Constantinidis: Wake Forest School of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Training in working memory tasks is associated with lasting changes in prefrontal cortical activity. To assess the neural activity changes induced by training, we recorded single units, multi-unit activity (MUA) and local field potentials (LFP) with chronic electrode arrays implanted in the prefrontal cortex of two monkeys, throughout the period they were trained to perform cognitive tasks. Mastering different task phases was associated with distinct changes in neural activity, which included recruitment of larger numbers of neurons, increases or decreases of their firing rate, changes in the correlation structure between neurons, and redistribution of power across LFP frequency bands. In every training phase, changes induced by the actively learned task were also observed in a control task, which remained the same across the training period. Our results reveal how learning to perform cognitive tasks induces plasticity of prefrontal cortical activity, and how activity changes may generalize between tasks.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27695-6

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