Dynamic coding of behaviourally relevant stimuli in parietal cortex (original) (raw)

Nature volume 415, pages 165–168 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

A general function of cerebral cortex is to allow the flexible association of sensory stimuli with specific behaviours. Many neurons in parietal1,2, prefrontal3,4 and motor5,6,7 cortical areas are activated both by particular movements and by sensory cues that trigger these movements, suggesting a role in linking sensation to action. For example, neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) encode both the location of visual stimuli and the direction of saccadic eye movements8,9. LIP is not believed to encode non-spatial stimulus attributes such as colour10,11. Here we investigated whether LIP would encode colour if colour was behaviourally linked to the eye movement. We trained monkeys to make an eye movement in one of two directions based alternately on the colour or location of a visual cue. When cue colour was relevant for directing eye movement, we found a substantial fraction of LIP neurons selective for cue colour. However, when cue location was relevant, colour selectivity was virtually absent in LIP. These results demonstrate that selectivity of cortical neurons can change as a function of the required behaviour.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

$199.00 per year

only $3.90 per issue

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Additional access options:

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Newsome, W. T., Wurtz, R. H. & Komatsu, H. Relation of cortical areas MT and MST to pursuit eye movements. II. Differentiation of retinal from extraretinal inputs. J. Neurophysiol. 60, 604–620 (1988).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  2. Andersen, R. A., Snyder, L. H., Li, C. S. & Stricanne, B. Coordinate transformations in the representation of spatial information. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 3, 171–176 (1993).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  3. Murray, E. A., Bussey, T. J. & Wise, S. P. Role of prefrontal cortex in a network for arbitrary visuomotor mapping. Exp. Brain. Res. 133, 114–129 (2000).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  4. Asaad, W. F., Rainer, G. & Miller, E. K. Neural activity in the primate prefrontal cortex during associative learning. Neuron 21, 1399–1407 (1998).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  5. Johnson, M. T., Coltz, J. D., Hagen, M. C. & Ebner, T. J. Visuomotor processing as reflected in the directional discharge of premotor and primary motor cortex neurons. J. Neurophysiol. 81, 875–894 (1999).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  6. Georgopoulos, A. P. Neural aspects of cognitive motor control. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 10, 238–241 (2000).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  7. Bichot, N. P., Schall, J. D. & Thompson, K. G. Visual feature selectivity in frontal eye fields induced by experience in mature macaques. Nature 381, 697–699 (1996).
    Article ADS CAS Google Scholar
  8. Andersen, R. A., Snyder, L. H. & Bradley, D. C. Multimodal representation of space in the posterior parietal cortex and its use in planning movements. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 20, 303–330 (1997).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  9. Colby, C. L. & Goldberg, M. E. space and attention in parietal cortex. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 22, 319–349 (1999).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  10. Ungerleider, L. G. & Mishkin, M. in Analysis of Visual Behavior (eds Ingle, D. J., Goodale, M. A. & Mansfield, R. J. W.) 549–586 (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982).
    Google Scholar
  11. Colby, C. L. & Duhamel, J. R. Spatial representations for action in parietal cortex. Brain Res. Cogn. Brain. Res. 5, 105–115 (1996).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  12. Abramson, N. Information Theory and Coding (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1963).
    Google Scholar
  13. Eskandar, E. N. & Assad, J. A. Dissociation of visual, motor and predictive signals in parietal cortex during visual guidance. Nature Neurosci. 2, 88–93 (1999).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  14. Lynch, J. C., Graybiel, A. M. & Lobeck, L. J. The differential projection of two cytoarchitectonic subregions of the inferior parietal lobule of macaque upon the deep layers of the superior colliculus. J. Comp. Neurol. 235, 241–254 (1985).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  15. Blatt, G. J., Andersen, R. A. & Stoner, G. R. Visual receptive field organization and cortico-cortical connections of the lateral intraparietal area (area LIP) in the macaque. J. Comp. Neurol. 299, 421–445 (1990).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  16. Thier, P. & Andersen, R. A. Electrical microstimulation distinguishes distinct saccade-related areas in the posterior parietal cortex. J. Neurophysiol. 80, 1713–1735 (1998).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  17. Sereno, A. B. & Maunsell, J. H. Shape selectivity in primate lateral intraparietal cortex. Nature 395, 500–503 (1998).
    Article ADS CAS Google Scholar
  18. Zhang, M. & Barash, S. neuronal switching of sensorimotor transformations for antisaccades. Nature 408, 971–975 (2000).
    Article ADS CAS Google Scholar
  19. Snyder, L. H., Batista, A. P. & Andersen, R. A. Coding of intention in the posterior parietal cortex. Nature 386, 167–170 (1997).
    Article ADS CAS Google Scholar
  20. Mazzoni, P., Bracewell, R. M., Barash, S. & Andersen, R. A. Spatially tuned auditory responses in area LIP of macaques performing delayed memory saccades to acoustic targets. J. Neurophysiol. 75, 1233–1241 (1996).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  21. Asaad, W. F., Rainer, G. & Miller, E. K. Task-specific neural activity in the primate prefrontal cortex. J. Neurophysiol. 84, 451–459 (2000).
    Article CAS Google Scholar
  22. Judge, S. J., Richmond, B. J. & Chu, F. C. Implantation of magnetic search coils for measurement of eye position: an improved method. Vision Res. 20, 535–538 (1980).
    Article CAS Google Scholar

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank E. Eskandar and I. Lee for their help with all aspects of this work and C. Pack and R. Born for reading the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA
    Louis J. Toth & John A. Assad

Authors

  1. Louis J. Toth
    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
  2. John A. Assad
    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence toLouis J. Toth.

Rights and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Toth, L., Assad, J. Dynamic coding of behaviourally relevant stimuli in parietal cortex.Nature 415, 165–168 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/415165a

Download citation

This article is cited by