Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-24-2009
Publication Title
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Department
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Abstract
Spatial and non-spatial sensory information is hypothesized to be evaluated in parallel pathways. In this study, we tested the spatial and non-spatial sensitivity of auditory neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vPFC), a cortical area in the non-spatial pathway. Activity was tested while non-human primates reported changes in an auditory stimulus' spatial or non-spatial features. We found that vPFC neurons were reliably modulated during a non-spatial auditory task but were not modulated during a spatial auditory task. The degree of modulation during the non-spatial task correlated positively with the monkeys' behavioral performance. These results are consistent with the hypotheses that the vPFC is part of a circuit involved in non-spatial auditory processing and that the vPFC plays a functional role in non-spatial auditory cognition.
DOI
10.1073/pnas.0907248106
Dartmouth Digital Commons Citation
Cohen, Y. E.; Russ, B. E.; Davis, S. J.; Baker, A. E.; Ackelson, A. L.; and Niteck, R., "A Functional Role for the Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Non-Spatial Auditory Cognition" (2009). Dartmouth Scholarship. 1519.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/facoa/1519