Agrita Dubey
Pesaran Lab
University of Pennsylvania

Multiregional mechanisms of flexible control of behavior

Sensory distractions often impede our ability to complete tasks and achieve our goals. Cognitive control—the ability to guide behavior and mental processes in alignment with goals—enables us to suppress distractions while focusing on relevant targets. A hallmark of cognitive control is behavioral flexibility: we may automatically attend to a salient object that signals danger, but we may also ignore the same object when it interferes with our goals. Central to this flexibility is the prefrontal cortex (PFC)- a brain region most advanced in primates- that controls the flow of information across different brain regions to support goal-driven behavior. However, our understanding of how PFC neurons interact across multiple brain regions remains rudimentary.

To address this question, my research program develops and tests a neural communication channel model in non-human primates. This communication channel model provides a conceptual framework to address a fundamental question in systems neuroscience- how do populations of neurons interact across different brain regions to support flexible control of behavior. In this seminar, I will present our recent findings that support this model. Using a visual selection behavior, I will demonstrate the role of a specific functional class of neurons, visual-movement (VM) neurons in flexible control of attentional selection. Additionally, I will discuss our efforts to develop state-of-the-art neural engineering techniques and computational approaches aimed at identifying network-level mechanisms underlying cognitive control. Through these combinations of techniques, my research program seeks to gain insight into the functions that are fundamental to cognition and essential to natural intelligence and will inform the artificial intelligence models.

A pizza lunch will be served.