Subspace partitioning in the human prefrontal cortex resolves cognitive interference
Abstrak
The human prefrontal cortex (PFC) constitutes the structural basis underlying flexible cognitive control, where mixed-selective neural populations encode multiple task features to guide subsequent behavior. The mechanisms by which the brain simultaneously encodes multiple task–relevant variables while minimizing interference from task-irrelevant features remain unknown. Leveraging intracranial recordings from the human PFC, we first demonstrate that competition between coexisting representations of past and present task variables incurs a behavioral switch cost. Our results reveal that this interference between past and present states in the PFC is resolved through coding partitioning into distinct low-dimensional neural states; thereby strongly attenuating behavioral switch costs. In sum, these findings uncover a fundamental coding mechanism that constitutes a central building block of flexible cognitive control.
Penulis (9)
Jan Weber
Gabriela Iwama
Anne-Kristin Solbakk
Alejandro O. Blenkmann
Pal G. Larsson
Jugoslav Ivanovic
Robert T. Knight
Tor Endestad
Randolph Helfrich
Akses Cepat
- Tahun Terbit
- 2023
- Bahasa
- en
- Total Sitasi
- 39×
- Sumber Database
- CrossRef
- DOI
- 10.1073/pnas.2220523120
- Akses
- Open Access ✓