Talk abstracts > Suliann Ben Hamed (ISC, Lyon)

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Suliann Ben Hamed - ISC, Lyon

Friday, June 2^nd

Talk Session 3: Electrophysiology of decision-making

9h30 - 10h

Distractibility and impulsivity neural states and perceptual decision-making

Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, Lyon, France benhamed@isc.cnrs.fr @BenHamedLab

During perceptual decision-making, it has been assumed that advanced knowledge such as spatial attention directly impacts overt behavior, considered the outcome of decision-making. I will present electrophysiological evidence from the macaque prefrontal cortex challenging this view. Using supervised dimensionality reduction techniques in prefrontal neuronal recordings in monkeys, I will first show that we identify two partially overlapping prefrontal neuronal subpopulations associated either with the focus of attention or overt behaviour. The degree of overlap accounts for the behavioral gain associated with the good allocation of attention. We describe the neural variability accounting for distractibility-to-impulsivity behaviour by a two-dimensional state associated with optimality in task and responsiveness. Overall, I will thus show that behavioral performance arises from the integration of task-specific neuronal processes and pre-existing neuronal states describing task-independent behavioral states. I will further show that prefrontal attentional and perceptual processes consistently fluctuate at a rhythm of circa 5 cycles per hour, and that these fluctuations impact both overall prefrontal information as well as the phase locking between local (MUA alpha) and distal (LFP theta) processes.