Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations
Cognitive flexibility requires both the encoding of task-relevant and the ignoring of task-irrelevant stimuli. While the neural coding of task-relevant stimuli is increasingly well understood, the mechanisms for ignoring task-irrelevant stimuli remain poorly understood. Here, we study how task perfo...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
2025-01-01
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| Series: | eLife |
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| Online Access: | https://elifesciences.org/articles/94961 |
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| author | Jake Patrick Stroud Michal Wojcik Kristopher Torp Jensen Makoto Kusunoki Mikiko Kadohisa Mark J Buckley John Duncan Mark G Stokes Mate Lengyel |
| author_facet | Jake Patrick Stroud Michal Wojcik Kristopher Torp Jensen Makoto Kusunoki Mikiko Kadohisa Mark J Buckley John Duncan Mark G Stokes Mate Lengyel |
| author_sort | Jake Patrick Stroud |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Cognitive flexibility requires both the encoding of task-relevant and the ignoring of task-irrelevant stimuli. While the neural coding of task-relevant stimuli is increasingly well understood, the mechanisms for ignoring task-irrelevant stimuli remain poorly understood. Here, we study how task performance and biological constraints jointly determine the coding of relevant and irrelevant stimuli in neural circuits. Using mathematical analyses and task-optimized recurrent neural networks, we show that neural circuits can exhibit a range of representational geometries depending on the strength of neural noise and metabolic cost. By comparing these results with recordings from primate prefrontal cortex (PFC) over the course of learning, we show that neural activity in PFC changes in line with a minimal representational strategy. Specifically, our analyses reveal that the suppression of dynamically irrelevant stimuli is achieved by activity-silent, sub-threshold dynamics. Our results provide a normative explanation as to why PFC implements an adaptive, minimal representational strategy. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-f05bbea1c3ca48818abd733dc11bbb8d |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2050-084X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | eLife Sciences Publications Ltd |
| record_format | Article |
| series | eLife |
| spelling | doaj-art-f05bbea1c3ca48818abd733dc11bbb8d2025-01-21T15:43:43ZengeLife Sciences Publications LtdeLife2050-084X2025-01-011310.7554/eLife.94961Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representationsJake Patrick Stroud0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4263-5755Michal Wojcik1Kristopher Torp Jensen2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9242-5572Makoto Kusunoki3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5381-8506Mikiko Kadohisa4Mark J Buckley5https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7455-8486John Duncan6Mark G Stokes7Mate Lengyel8Computational and Biological Learning Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United KingdomDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United KingdomComputational and Biological Learning Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United KingdomDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United KingdomDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United KingdomDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United KingdomMRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United KingdomDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity, Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United KingdomComputational and Biological Learning Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom; Center for Cognitive Computation, Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest, HungaryCognitive flexibility requires both the encoding of task-relevant and the ignoring of task-irrelevant stimuli. While the neural coding of task-relevant stimuli is increasingly well understood, the mechanisms for ignoring task-irrelevant stimuli remain poorly understood. Here, we study how task performance and biological constraints jointly determine the coding of relevant and irrelevant stimuli in neural circuits. Using mathematical analyses and task-optimized recurrent neural networks, we show that neural circuits can exhibit a range of representational geometries depending on the strength of neural noise and metabolic cost. By comparing these results with recordings from primate prefrontal cortex (PFC) over the course of learning, we show that neural activity in PFC changes in line with a minimal representational strategy. Specifically, our analyses reveal that the suppression of dynamically irrelevant stimuli is achieved by activity-silent, sub-threshold dynamics. Our results provide a normative explanation as to why PFC implements an adaptive, minimal representational strategy.https://elifesciences.org/articles/94961recurrent neural networksdynamical systemscognitionprefrontal cortex |
| spellingShingle | Jake Patrick Stroud Michal Wojcik Kristopher Torp Jensen Makoto Kusunoki Mikiko Kadohisa Mark J Buckley John Duncan Mark G Stokes Mate Lengyel Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations eLife recurrent neural networks dynamical systems cognition prefrontal cortex |
| title | Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations |
| title_full | Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations |
| title_fullStr | Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations |
| title_short | Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations |
| title_sort | effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations |
| topic | recurrent neural networks dynamical systems cognition prefrontal cortex |
| url | https://elifesciences.org/articles/94961 |
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