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Dynamic routing of task-relevant signals for decision making in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Nature Neuroscience volume 18, pages 295–301 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Neurons in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) encode a diverse array of sensory and mnemonic signals, but little is known about how this information is dynamically routed during decision making. We analyzed the neuronal activity in the DLPFC of monkeys performing a probabilistic reversal task where information about the probability and magnitude of reward was provided by the target color and numerical cues, respectively. The location of the target of a given color was randomized across trials and therefore was not relevant for subsequent choices. DLPFC neurons encoded signals related to both task-relevant and irrelevant features, but only task-relevant mnemonic signals were encoded congruently with choice signals. Furthermore, only the task-relevant signals related to previous events were more robustly encoded following rewarded outcomes. Thus, multiple types of neural signals are flexibly routed in the DLPFC so as to favor actions that maximize reward.

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Figure 1: Behavioral task and performance.
Figure 2: Population summary and single-neuron examples for activity related to events in the previous trial.
Figure 3: Population summary and single-neuron examples for activity related to events in the current trial.
Figure 4: Population summary and single-neuron examples related to interaction effects.
Figure 5: Congruent coding of HVL and choice.
Figure 6: Effects of reward on task-relevant and task-irrelevant signals in the DLPFC.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Hammond and P. Kurnath for technical support, and Z. Zhang for his help with the experiment. This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (T32 NS007224 to C.H.D. and R01 DA029330 to D.L.).

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Author notes

  1. Christopher H Donahue

    Present address: Present address: Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease, San Francisco, California, USA.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    Christopher H Donahue & Daeyeol Lee

  2. Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    Daeyeol Lee

  3. Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    Daeyeol Lee

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  1. Christopher H Donahue
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Contributions

C.H.D. and D.L. designed the experiments and wrote the manuscript. C.H.D. did the experiment and analyzed the data.

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Correspondence to Daeyeol Lee.

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Integrated supplementary information

Supplementary Figure 1 Anatomical distributions for neurons encoding HVL, PRL and choice.

Color symbols correspond to the neurons that showed significant modulations for each variable (n=226 neurons, both monkeys combined).

Supplementary information

Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figure 1 and Supplementary Table 1 (PDF 471 kb)

Supplementary Methods Checklist (PDF 397 kb)

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Donahue, C., Lee, D. Dynamic routing of task-relevant signals for decision making in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Nat Neurosci 18, 295–301 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3918

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