P.161 Spatiotemporal dynamics of neuronal ensembles in the primate prefrontal cortex during virtual reality navigation tasks

• DOI: 10.1017/cjn.2022.243
• Publication Date: 2022-06-24T11:30:03Z
• Authors: M Abbass; R Johnston; B Corrigan; RA Gulli; A Sachs; JC Lau; J Martinez-Trujillo
• Keywords: Joystick; Interface (matter)

Background: Brain-machine-interface research has utilized multichannel single neuron recordings to decode movement intention. However, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) contains mental representations of more abstract task and goal elements which may be as important signals in a brain-machine-interface. We therefore virtual reality simulate real-world while recording from ensembles primate PFC neurons. Methods: Two male rhesus macaques (macaca mulatta) were trained navigate environment using joystick learn context-object association rule. implanted each monkey with two 96-channel Utah arrays (Blackrock Microsystems) lateral (areas 9/46 8a) simultaneously recorded multiple Results: A linear support-vector-machine decoded (context, target location chosen direction movement) significantly greater than chance accuracy. This information was sequential manner primates made rule-based decision, context appearing first, followed by location, side. Conclusions: found that different neuronal encode needed for implementing rule, such are activated sequentially. systems benefit integrating neural data PFC, providing salient goal-related content its spatial location.