Category Inference and Prefrontal Cortex

摘要：

We hypothesize that the prefrontal cortex is involved in category inference. To test this hypothesis, we recorded single-unit activity from the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) of two monkeys performing a sequential paired-association task with an asymmetric reward schedule. We found that a group of LPFC neurons encoded reward value specific to a category of visual stimuli defined by relevant behavioral responses. And these neurons predicted the amount of reward based on new category members that had never been used in the asymmetric reward task, when a member from the same category was paired with a large (or small) amount of reward. The results suggest that LPFC neurons encode category-based reward information, and transfer this information to category members including new ones, which could be the neural basis of category inference.

关键词： Category Inference Prefrontal cortex Neuron Monkey

作者: Xiaochuan Pan Masamichi Sakagami

作者单位: Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Japan

会议类型: 国际会议

会议名称: The Second International Conference on Cognitive Neurodynamics--2009(第二届国际认知神经动力学会议)

会议地点: 杭州

会议语种:英文

页码: 117-122

在线出版日期: 2009-11-15（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）