Touché: the feeling of choice

A new model by Machens et al. proposes a mechanism by which prefrontal cortex neurons can do two jobs that are normally thought to occur independently. In a stimulus comparison task, these model neurons both cast votes for a stimulus and make decisions.

[1]  Ranulfo Romo,et al.  Flexible Control of Mutual Inhibition: A Neural Model of Two-Interval Discrimination , 2005, Science.

[2]  P. Goldman-Rakic,et al.  Mnemonic coding of visual space in the monkey's dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. , 1989, Journal of neurophysiology.

[3]  R. Romo,et al.  Timing and neural encoding of somatosensory parametric working memory in macaque prefrontal cortex. , 2003, Cerebral cortex.

[4]  M. Shadlen,et al.  A role for neural integrators in perceptual decision making. , 2003, Cerebral cortex.

[5]  G. E. Alexander,et al.  Neuron Activity Related to Short-Term Memory , 1971, Science.

[6]  E. Miller,et al.  Timecourse of object‐related neural activity in the primate prefrontal cortex during a short‐term memory task , 2002, The European journal of neuroscience.

[7]  J. Gold,et al.  The Influence of Behavioral Context on the Representation of a Perceptual Decision in Developing Oculomotor Commands , 2003, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[8]  H S Seung,et al.  How the brain keeps the eyes still. , 1996, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[9]  Michael L. Platt,et al.  Neural correlates of decision variables in parietal cortex , 1999, Nature.

[10]  R. Romo,et al.  Neuronal correlates of parametric working memory in the prefrontal cortex , 1999, Nature.

[11]  Eve Marder,et al.  Cellular, synaptic and network effects of neuromodulation , 2002, Neural Networks.

[12]  S. Grossberg.  The imbalanced brain: from normal behavior to schizophrenia , 2000, Biological Psychiatry.