Neuron
Volume 97, Issue 3, 7 February 2018, Pages 716-726.e8
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Article
Different Levels of Category Abstraction by Different Dynamics in Different Prefrontal Areas

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2018.01.009Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Category abstraction was organized by oscillatory dynamics and PFC subregion

  • Gamma oscillations in the ventrolateral PFC signaled low-level category abstraction

  • Beta oscillations in the dorsolateral PFC signaled high-level category abstraction

Summary

Categories can be grouped by shared sensory attributes (i.e., cats) or a more abstract rule (i.e., animals). We explored the neural basis of abstraction by recording from multi-electrode arrays in prefrontal cortex (PFC) while monkeys performed a dot-pattern categorization task. Category abstraction was varied by the degree of exemplar distortion from the prototype pattern. Different dynamics in different PFC regions processed different levels of category abstraction. Bottom-up dynamics (stimulus-locked gamma power and spiking) in the ventral PFC processed more low-level abstractions, whereas top-down dynamics (beta power and beta spike-LFP coherence) in the dorsal PFC processed more high-level abstractions. Our results suggest a two-stage, rhythm-based model for abstracting categories.

Keywords

category
abstraction
ventrolateral prefrontal cortex
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
gamma oscillations
beta oscillations
bottom-up
top-down

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