Guest lecture by Andreas Nieder (Uni Tübingen)BrainLinks-BrainTools is inviting all members, colleagues and friends to a guest lecture given by Prof. Dr. Andreas Nieder from the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen:
Coordination of goal-directed behavior in associative endbrain areas of corvids and primates
Executive control enables us to use previous knowledge and learned concepts in order to plan appropriate actions for the future. This is the core of intelligent behavior: beyond simply reacting to the world, it allows us to adjust in an instance to a changing environment and act upon it in order to obtain a desired outcome. We investigate the neural mechanisms that support such executive functions in combined psychophysical/neurophysiological studies in monkeys and crows. These two phylogentically disparate vertebrate species show outstanding cognitive capabilities based on independently and distinctly evolved endbrain structures: the six-layered prefrontal neocortex in primates, and the nuclear Nidopallium caudolaterale in corvid songbirds. Sustained activity of single cells and populations of neurons in both species carries information about prospective conceptual knowledge and preparatory motor activity. Persistent change of neuronal activity in temporal gaps is able to predict the animals’ choices in rule-based decision tasks long before an action is executed. Our data help to understand how goal-directed behavior in a quickly changing environment is neuronally implemented. They suggest similar neurophysiological solutions that emerged independently to a common computational problem, irrespective of the precise origin and anatomical structures of intelligent vertebrate brains.
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