TY - JOUR
T1 - Abstract goal representation in visual search by neurons in the human pre-supplementary motor area
AU - Wang, Shuo
AU - Mamelak, Adam N.
AU - Adolphs, Ralph
AU - Rutishauser, Ueli
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) (2019).
PY - 2019/11/1
Y1 - 2019/11/1
N2 - The medial frontal cortex is important for goal-directed behaviours such as visual search. The pre-supplementary motor area (pre- SMA) plays a critical role in linking higher-level goals to actions, but little is known about the responses of individual cells in this area in humans. Pre-SMA dysfunction is thought to be a critical factor in the cognitive deficits that are observed in diseases such as Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia, making it important to develop a better mechanistic understanding of the pre-SMA's role in cognition. We simultaneously recorded single neurons in the human pre-SMA and eye movements while subjects performed goaldirected visual search tasks. We characterized two groups of neurons in the pre-SMA. First, 40% of neurons changed their firing rate whenever a fixation landed on the search target. These neurons responded to targets in an abstract manner across several conditions and tasks. Responses were invariant to motor output (i.e. button press or not), and to different ways of defining the search target (by instruction or pop-out). Second, ∼50% of neurons changed their response as a function of fixation order. Together, our results show that human pre-SMA neurons carry abstract signals during visual search that indicate whether a goal was reached in an action- and cue-independent manner. This suggests that the pre-SMA contributes to goal-directed behaviour by flexibly signalling goal detection and time elapsed since start of the search, and this process occurs regardless of task. These observations provide insights into how pre-SMA dysfunction might impact cognitive function.
AB - The medial frontal cortex is important for goal-directed behaviours such as visual search. The pre-supplementary motor area (pre- SMA) plays a critical role in linking higher-level goals to actions, but little is known about the responses of individual cells in this area in humans. Pre-SMA dysfunction is thought to be a critical factor in the cognitive deficits that are observed in diseases such as Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia, making it important to develop a better mechanistic understanding of the pre-SMA's role in cognition. We simultaneously recorded single neurons in the human pre-SMA and eye movements while subjects performed goaldirected visual search tasks. We characterized two groups of neurons in the pre-SMA. First, 40% of neurons changed their firing rate whenever a fixation landed on the search target. These neurons responded to targets in an abstract manner across several conditions and tasks. Responses were invariant to motor output (i.e. button press or not), and to different ways of defining the search target (by instruction or pop-out). Second, ∼50% of neurons changed their response as a function of fixation order. Together, our results show that human pre-SMA neurons carry abstract signals during visual search that indicate whether a goal was reached in an action- and cue-independent manner. This suggests that the pre-SMA contributes to goal-directed behaviour by flexibly signalling goal detection and time elapsed since start of the search, and this process occurs regardless of task. These observations provide insights into how pre-SMA dysfunction might impact cognitive function.
KW - Abstract goal representation
KW - Human single unit
KW - Pre-supplementary motor area
KW - Target detection
KW - Visual search
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074306222&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/brain/awz279
DO - 10.1093/brain/awz279
M3 - Article
C2 - 31549164
AN - SCOPUS:85074306222
SN - 0006-8950
VL - 142
SP - 3530
EP - 3549
JO - Brain
JF - Brain
IS - 11
ER -