Thalamic regulation of frontal interactions in human cognitive flexibility
Name
journal.pcbi.1010500.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.92 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6acfa9a3df2e7556ca4f5ba196c09366
Author(s)
Hummos, Ali
Wang, Bin A
Drammis, Sabrina
Halassa, Michael M
Pleger, Burkhard
Date Issued
September 2022
Journal
PLOS Computational Biology
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Citation
Hummos, Ali, Wang, Bin A, Drammis, Sabrina, Halassa, Michael M and Pleger, Burkhard. 2022. "Thalamic regulation of frontal interactions in human cognitive flexibility." PLOS Computational Biology, 18 (9).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Interactions across frontal cortex are critical for cognition. Animal studies suggest a role for mediodorsal thalamus (MD) in these interactions, but the computations performed and direct relevance to human decision making are unclear. Here, inspired by animal work, we extended a neural model of an executive frontal-MD network and trained it on a human decision-making task for which neuroimaging data were collected. Using a biologically-plausible learning rule, we found that the model MD thalamus compressed its cortical inputs (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, dlPFC) underlying stimulus-response representations. Through direct feedback to dlPFC, this thalamic operation efficiently partitioned cortical activity patterns and enhanced task switching across different contingencies. To account for interactions with other frontal regions, we expanded the model to compute higher-order strategy signals outside dlPFC, and found that the MD offered a more efficient route for such signals to switch dlPFC activity patterns. Human fMRI data provided evidence that the MD engaged in feedback to dlPFC, and had a role in routing orbitofrontal cortex inputs when subjects switched behavioral strategy. Collectively, our findings contribute to the emerging evidence for thalamic regulation of frontal interactions in the human brain.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010500
