Persistent neuronal activity in human prefrontal cortex links perception and action

Matar Haller, John Case, Nathan E. Crone, Edward F. Chang, David King-Stephens, Kenneth D. Laxer, Peter B. Weber, Josef Parvizi, Robert T. Knight and Avgusta Y. Shestyuk ()
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Matar Haller: University of California
John Case: University of California
Nathan E. Crone: The Johns Hopkins University Medical School
Edward F. Chang: University of California
David King-Stephens: California Pacific Medical Center
Kenneth D. Laxer: California Pacific Medical Center
Peter B. Weber: California Pacific Medical Center
Josef Parvizi: Stanford University
Robert T. Knight: University of California
Avgusta Y. Shestyuk: University of California

Nature Human Behaviour, 2018, vol. 2, issue 1, 80-91

Abstract: Abstract How do humans flexibly respond to changing environmental demands on a subsecond temporal scale? Extensive research has highlighted the key role of the prefrontal cortex in flexible decision-making and adaptive behaviour, yet the core mechanisms that translate sensory information into behaviour remain undefined. Using direct human cortical recordings, we investigated the temporal and spatial evolution of neuronal activity (indexed by the broadband gamma signal) in 16 participants while they performed a broad range of self-paced cognitive tasks. Here we describe a robust domain- and modality-independent pattern of persistent stimulus-to-response neural activation that encodes stimulus features and predicts motor output on a trial-by-trial basis with near-perfect accuracy. Observed across a distributed network of brain areas, this persistent neural activation is centred in the prefrontal cortex and is required for successful response implementation, providing a functional substrate for domain-general transformation of perception into action, critical for flexible behaviour.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0267-2

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