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Contributed Talk Session: Friday, August 15, 12:00 – 1:00 pm, Room C1.03
Poster Session C: Friday, August 15, 2:00 – 5:00 pm, de Brug & E‑Hall

Task-Relevant Information is Distributed Across the Cortex, but the Past is State-Dependent and Restricted to Frontal Regions

Lubna Shaheen Abdul¹, Scott L Brincat², Earl K Miller², Joao Barbosa³; ¹Universite Paris Diderot, ²Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ³Université Paris-Saclay

Presenter: Lubna Shaheen Abdul

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt our decisions to changing demands (Braem & Egner, 2018). This behavioral feat requires matching internal states to ongoing task demands (Ashwood et al., 2022). Here, we examine the behavior and single-unit activity recorded simultaneously from 7 regions of the monkey brain (PFC, FEF, LIP, MT, V4, IT, and parietal cortex) while two monkeys performed a context-dependent decision-making task. The relevant task was cued by a specific shape on every trial, indicating whether color or motion was relevant for decision making. Using Hidden Markov Models, we identified three latent cognitive states that captured dynamic shifts in engagement and strategy throughout the task (Hulsey et al., 2024). Specifically, we found two context-dependent states, marked by high accuracy in one context. Additionally, we also found a context-independent state (“default state”) in which both stimuli were integrated and marked by higher lapse rates. Previous-trial stimuli and responses biased current-trial responses in all states, but in opposite directions and stronger in the default state. Preliminary neural decoding analysis reveals that current stimuli are broadly represented across cortical areas, while past trial features are only encoded in frontal regions (PFC and FEF). Together, these findings highlight the role of higher-order regions and internal cognitive states in shaping perceptual decisions.

Topic Area: Memory, Spatial Cognition & Skill Learning

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