Coding perceptual discrimination in the somatosensory thalamus.

The sensory thalamus is classically viewed as a relay station of sensory information to cortex, but recent studies suggest that it is sensitive to cognitive demands. There are, however, few experiments designed to test whether this is so. We addressed this problem by analyzing the responses of single neurons recorded in the somatosensory thalamus while trained monkeys reported a decision based on the comparison of two mechanical vibration frequencies applied sequentially to one fingertip. In this task, monkeys must hold the first stimulus frequency (f1) in working memory and compare it to the current sensory stimulus (f2) and must postpone the decision report until a cue triggers the decision motor report, i.e., whether f2 > f1 or f2 < f1. We found that thalamic somatosensory neurons encoded the stimulus frequency either in their periodicity and firing-rate responses, but only during the stimulus periods and not during the working memory and decision components of this task. Furthermore, correlation analysis between behavior and stimulus coding showed that only the firing rate modulations accounted for the overall psychophysical performance. However, these responses did not predict the animal's decision reports on individual trials. Moreover, the sensitivity to changes in stimulus frequency was similar when the monkeys performed the vibrotactile discrimination task and when they were not required to report discrimination. These results suggest that the somatosensory thalamus behaves as a relay station of sensory information to the cortex and that it is insensitive to the cognitive demands of the task used here.

Decoding a perceptual decision process across cortex.

Perceptual decisions arise from the activity of neurons distributed across brain circuits. But, decoding the mechanisms behind this cognitive operation across brain circuits has long posed a difficult problem. We recorded the neuronal activity of diverse cortical areas, while monkeys performed a vibrotactile discrimination task. We find that the encoding of the stimuli during the stimulus periods, working memory, and comparison periods is widely distributed across cortical areas. Notably, during the comparison and postponed decision report periods the activity of frontal brain circuits encode both the result of the sensory evaluation that corresponds to the monkey's possible choices and past information on which the decision is based. These results suggest that frontal lobe circuits are more engaged in the readout of sensory information from working memory, when it is required to be compared with other sensory inputs, than simply engaged in motor responses during this task.

Procedure for recording the simultaneous activity of single neurons distributed across cortical areas during sensory discrimination.

We report a procedure for recording the simultaneous activity of single neurons distributed across five cortical areas in behaving monkeys. The procedure consists of a commercially available microdrive adapted to a commercially available neural data collection system. The critical advantage of this procedure is that, in each cortical area, a configuration of seven microelectrodes spaced 250-500 mum can be inserted transdurally and each can be moved independently in the z axis. For each microelectrode, the data collection system can record the activity of up to five neurons together with the local field potential (LFP). With this procedure, we normally monitor the simultaneous activity of 70-100 neurons while trained monkeys discriminate the difference in frequency between two vibrotactile stimuli. Approximately 20-60 of these neurons have response properties previously reported in this task. The neuronal recordings show good signal-to-noise ratio, are remarkably stable along a 1-day session, and allow testing several protocols. Microelectrodes are removed from the brain after a 1-day recording session, but are reinserted again the next day by using the same or different x-y microelectrode array configurations. The fact that microelectrodes can be moved in the z axis during the recording session and that the x-y configuration can be changed from day to day maximizes the probability of studying simultaneous interactions, both local and across distant cortical areas, between neurons associated with the different components of this task.