Differences in intrinsic functional organization between dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortex

The dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortex are 2 components of the cortical network controlling attention, working memory, and executive function. Little is known about how the anatomical organization of the 2 areas accounts for their functional specialization. In order to address thi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) N.Y. 1991), 2014-09, Vol.24 (9), p.2334-2349
Main Authors: Katsuki, Fumi, Qi, Xue-Lian, Meyer, Travis, Kostelic, Phillip M, Salinas, Emilio, Constantinidis, Christos
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action Potentials
Animals
Computer Simulation
Macaca mulatta
Male
Memory, Short-Term - physiology
Microelectrodes
Neural Pathways - physiology
Neurons - physiology
Neuropsychological Tests
Parietal Lobe - physiology
Prefrontal Cortex - 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:The dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortex are 2 components of the cortical network controlling attention, working memory, and executive function. Little is known about how the anatomical organization of the 2 areas accounts for their functional specialization. In order to address this question, we examined the strength of intrinsic functional connectivity between neurons sampled in each area by means of cross-correlation analyses of simultaneous recordings from monkeys trained to perform working memory tasks. In both areas, effective connectivity declined as a function of distance between neurons. However, the strength of effective connectivity was higher overall and more localized over short distances in the posterior parietal than the prefrontal cortex. The difference in connectivity strength between the 2 areas could not be explained by differences in firing rate or selectivity for the stimuli and task events, it was present when the fixation period alone was analyzed, and according to simulation results, was consistent with a systematic difference either in the strength or in the relative numbers of shared inputs between neurons. Our results indicate that the 2 areas are characterized by unique intrinsic functional organization, consistent with known differences in their response patterns during working memory.
ISSN:1047-3211
1460-2199
DOI:10.1093/cercor/bht087