Matthew Chafee, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Neuroscience
University of Minnesota Medical School

Cognitive flexibility and neural communication patterns in monkey prefrontal networks

Synaptic interactions mediate the exchange of information between neurons that is perhaps the most direct biological correlate of computation in brain networks.   To capture these dynamics, our lab records spiking activity in groups of neurons in monkey prefrontal cortex and connected brain areas and then applies statistical models to the spiking data to infer neural interactions while computations performed by prefrontal networks are ongoing.  I will present data that relates the pattern of neural interactions to cognitive control, the ability to modify computations applied to sensory input according to internal goals or rules.  I will also discuss how disruption of synaptically mediated neural interactions may lead to cognitive control failure in schizophrenia, leverage data in monkey drug, mouse genetic, and computational models

Faculty Host: Daeyeol Lee