100121 Durstewitz

The Bernstein Center Freiburg

Bernstein Seminar

Daniel Durstewitz

Computational Neuroscience
Central Institute of Mental Health
Mannheim, Germany

Prefrontal cortical attractor dynamics revealed by multiple single-unit recordings & multivariate analysis

Abstract:
The mammalian prefrontal cortex is involved in higher level cognitive processes like monitoring and guiding behavior. It is particularly important in novel and changing situations where new behavioral strategies have to be set up to deal with environmental challenges. Here I will present results from multiple simultaneous single-unit recordings performed from rat prefrontal cortex while the animal was situated in different working memory, decision making, and set-shifting contexts. In particular, drawing on techniques from multivariate statistics and nonlinear dynamics, we attempted to reconstruct attracting states and transitions among these states in these various behavioral contexts on a single trial basis without the help of averaging. The reconstructed neural dynamics was furthermore tightly related to and used to predict behavioral properties.

Host: Janina Kirsch