Synchronous beta rhythms of frontoparietal networks support only behaviorally relevant representations

  1. Evan G Antzoulatos  Is a corresponding author
  2. Earl K Miller  Is a corresponding author
  1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States

Abstract

Categorization has been associated with distributed networks of the primate brain, including the prefrontal (PFC) and posterior parietal cortices (PPC). Although category-selective spiking in PFC and PPC has been established, the frequency-dependent dynamic interactions of frontoparietal networks are largely unexplored. We trained monkeys to perform a delayed-match-to-spatial-category task while recording spikes and local field potentials from the PFC and PPC with multiple electrodes. We found category-selective beta- and delta-band synchrony between and within the areas. However, in addition to the categories, delta synchrony and spiking activity also reflected irrelevant stimulus dimensions. By contrast, beta synchrony only conveyed information about the task-relevant categories. Further, category-selective PFC neurons were synchronized with PPC beta oscillations, while neurons that carried irrelevant information were not. These results suggest that long-range beta-band synchrony could act as a filter that only supports neural representations of the variables relevant to the task at hand.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Evan G Antzoulatos

    The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States
    For correspondence
    eantzoulatos@ucdavis.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7366-2078
  2. Earl K Miller

    The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States
    For correspondence
    ekmiller@mit.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH065252)

  • Earl K Miller

Prop. 63 the Mental Health Services Act and the Behavioral Health Center of Excellence at UC Davis (Pilot Award)

  • Evan G Antzoulatos

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Tatiana Pasternak, University of Rochester, United States

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All work was in accordance with the National Institutes of Health guidelines and approved by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Committee for Animal Care (protocol number: 0516-026-19).

Version history

  1. Received: May 13, 2016
  2. Accepted: November 13, 2016
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: November 14, 2016 (version 1)
  4. Accepted Manuscript updated: November 16, 2016 (version 2)
  5. Version of Record published: December 8, 2016 (version 3)

Copyright

© 2016, Antzoulatos & Miller

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Evan G Antzoulatos
  2. Earl K Miller
(2016)
Synchronous beta rhythms of frontoparietal networks support only behaviorally relevant representations
eLife 5:e17822.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17822

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https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17822

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