Distinct effects of prefrontal and parietal cortex inactivations on an accumulation of evidence task in the rat

摘要: Numerous brain regions have been shown to neural correlates of gradually accumulating evidence for decision-making, but the causal roles these in decisions driven by accumulation yet be determined. Here, rats performing an auditory task, we inactivated frontal orienting fields (FOF) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC), two rat cortical that proposed as central decision-making. We used a detailed model decision process analyze effect inactivations. Inactivation FOF induced substantial performance impairments were quantitatively best described impairment output pathway accumulator with long integration time constant (>240 ms). In contrast, found minimal role PPC guided evidence, even while finding strong internally-guided decisions.