functional role for the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in non-spatial auditory cognition

Spatial and non-spatial sensory information is hypothesized to be evaluated in parallel pathways. In this study, we tested the spatial and non-spatial sensitivity of auditory neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vPFC), a cortical area in the non-spatial pathway. Activity was tested while...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2009-11, Vol.106 (47), p.20045-20050
Main Authors: Cohen, Y.E, Russ, B.E, Davis, S.J, Baker, A.E, Ackelson, A.L, Nitecki, R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Animal cognition
Animal vocalization
Animals
Auditory cortex
Auditory Pathways - physiology
Auditory Perception - physiology
Auditory stimulation
Behavior, Animal - physiology
Behavioral neuroscience
Biological Sciences
Brain
Cognition
Cognition - physiology
Correlation analysis
Electrophysiology
Geometric lines
Humans
Macaca mulatta
Male
Mental stimulation
Monkeys & apes
Neurons
Neurons - physiology
Prefrontal cortex
Prefrontal Cortex - anatomy & histology
Prefrontal Cortex - physiology
Primates
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Sensory perception
Space Perception - physiology
Studies
Vocalization, Animal - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Spatial and non-spatial sensory information is hypothesized to be evaluated in parallel pathways. In this study, we tested the spatial and non-spatial sensitivity of auditory neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vPFC), a cortical area in the non-spatial pathway. Activity was tested while non-human primates reported changes in an auditory stimulus' spatial or non-spatial features. We found that vPFC neurons were reliably modulated during a non-spatial auditory task but were not modulated during a spatial auditory task. The degree of modulation during the non-spatial task correlated positively with the monkeys' behavioral performance. These results are consistent with the hypotheses that the vPFC is part of a circuit involved in non-spatial auditory processing and that the vPFC plays a functional role in non-spatial auditory cognition.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0907248106