Dynamic Coding for Cognitive Control in Prefrontal Cortex
Open accessAbstract
Cognitive flexibility is fundamental to adaptive intelligent behavior. Prefrontal cortex has long been associated with flexible cognitive function, but the neurophysiological principles that enable prefrontal cells to adapt their response properties according to context-dependent rules remain poorly understood. Here, we use time-resolved population-level neural pattern analyses to explore how context is encoded and maintained in primate prefrontal cortex and used in flexible decision making. We show that an instruction cue triggers a rapid series of state transitions before settling into a stable low-activity state. The postcue state is differentially tuned according to the current task-relevant rule. During decision making, the response to a choice stimulus is characterized by an initial stimulus-specific population response but evolves to different final decision-related states depending on the current rule. These results demonstrate how neural tuning profiles in prefrontal cortex adapt to accommodate changes in behavioral context. Highly flexible tuning could be mediated via short-term synaptic plasticity.
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Neural coding schemes in the PFC are denser relative to the sparse codes found in perceptual areas.
“Further, neural coding schemes in the PFC are denser relative to the sparse codes found in perceptual areas (Duncan, 2001;Stokes et al., 2013).”
From Does the Prefrontal Cortex Play an Essential Role in Consciousness? Insights from Intracranial Electrical Stimulation of the Human Brain (2021) · cites this paper as Stokes et al., 2013
The Introduction and Results describe adaptive, population-level coding in PFC, but do not characterize it as denser than coding in perceptual areas. Searches for “sparse,” “dense,” and a PFC–perceptual cortex comparison found no passage addressing that comparison in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.72)
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“These are also times, not coincidentally we suggest, when prefrontal population spiking activity forms new representations (stimulus and movement onset) or transforms representations into di ff erent coding subspaces (sensory to memory transformation; Stokes et al., 2013; Parthasarathy et al., 2017).”
- Authors
- Stokes, M. G., Kusunoki, M., Sigala, N., Nili, H., Gaffan, D., & Duncan, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Brighton and Sussex Medical School (GB)
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Stokes, Mark G.
- Venue
- Neuron
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-04
- Volume
- 78
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 364-375
- ISSN
- 0896-6273 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3898895
- OpenAlex
- W2152868521
- Cited by
- 711
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 37 · 2025: 58 · 2024: 56 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 51 · 2021: 59 · 2020: 51 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 56 · 2017: 72 · 2016: 53 · 2015: 55 · 2014: 41 · 2013: 14
- FWCI
- 29.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Neuron (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Institute for Health and Care Research
- Medical Research Council (MR/J009024/1, MC_qA137504)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- prefrontal cortex, cognitive flexibility, context encoding, population coding, decision-making, rule-based behavior, state transitions, short-term plasticity
- MeSH terms
- Action Potentials, Animals, Choice Behavior, Cognition, Cues, Macaca mulatta, Male, Models, Neurological, Neurons, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Time Factors, Prefrontal Cortex, Nonlinear Dynamics
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