Prefrontal reinstatement of contextual task demand is predicted by separable hippocampal patterns

• Published in: Nature communications 2020-04, Vol.11 (1), p.2053-2053, Article 2053
• Main Authors: Jiang, Jiefeng, Wang, Shao-Fang, Guo, Wanjia, Fernandez, Corey, Wagner, Anthony D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 59/36; 631/378; 631/378/1595; 631/378/2629; 631/378/2649; 631/477; Accuracy; Adaptive control; Adolescent; Adult; Behavior; Cognition - physiology; Cognitive ability; Context; Cooking; Demand; Female; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Hippocampus; Hippocampus - physiology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Learning; Male; multidisciplinary; Prefrontal cortex; Prefrontal Cortex - physiology; Reinforcement, Psychology; Reinstatement; Representations; Retrieval; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Task Performance and Analysis; Time Factors; Virtual environments; Young Adult
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15928-z

Goal-directed behavior requires the representation of a task-set that defines the task-relevance of stimuli and guides stimulus-action mappings. Past experience provides one source of knowledge about likely task demands in the present, with learning enabling future predictions about anticipated demands. We examine whether spatial contexts serve to cue retrieval of associated task demands (e.g., context A and B probabilistically cue retrieval of task demands X and Y, respectively), and the role of the hippocampus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in mediating such retrieval. Using 3D virtual environments, we induce context-task demand probabilistic associations and find that learned associations affect goal-directed behavior. Concurrent fMRI data reveal that, upon entering a context, differences between hippocampal representations of contexts (i.e., neural pattern separability) predict proactive retrieval of the probabilistically dominant associated task demand, which is reinstated in dlPFC. These findings reveal how hippocampal-prefrontal interactions support memory-guided cognitive control and adaptive behavior. Spatial contexts are often predictive of the tasks to be performed in them (e.g., a kitchen predicts cooking). Here the authors show that the retrieval of task demand when encountering a spatial context depends on hippocampal-prefrontal interactions.