From Cognitive-type Microcircuits to Large-scale Modeling of the Primate Cortex

NIH Neuroscience Seminar Series Research in Dr. Wang’s group aims at understanding dynamical behavior and function of neural circuits. Using theoretical and modeling approaches, in close collaboration with experimentalists, they investigate the neural mechanisms and computational principles of cognitive processes, such as decision-making (how we make a choice among multiple options) and working memory (how our brain holds and manipulates information "online" in the absence of sensory stimulation). Dr. Wang’s lab has been focused on the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is often called "the CEO of the brain". They are interested in identifying circuit properties that enable PFC to sub serve higher cognitive functions, in contrast to early sensory processing. They found that a local circuit endowed with strong but slow recurrent dynamics ("reverberation") is well suited for both decision-making and working memory, suggesting a canonical "cognitive-type" neural circuit. Mathematically, such circuits are described as "attractor networks" that are characterized by powerful feedback mechanisms, long transients as well as self-sustained persistent activity. This finding led them to investigate all sorts of decision processes, including reward-based economic choice behavior, categorization, inhibitory control of action selection, attention switching, probabilistic inference. A recent collaborative work offers a theoretical explanation, supported by single-neuron data from behaving...
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