美国冷泉港实验室Tatiana A. Engel团队取得一项新突破。他们的最新研究提出了运动前皮层中选择的动力学和几何。相关论文于2025年6月25日发表于国际顶尖学术期刊《自然》杂志上。

在这里，研究组展示了在灵长类动物运动前皮层中存在这样一个种群代码，用于选择形成的动态。该研究组开发了一种同时推断种群动态和单个神经元对种群状态的调节函数的方法。应用于决策过程中记录的脉冲数据，他们的模型揭示了神经元群体编码相同的预测选择的动态变量，并且单个神经元对该决策变量的不同调整导致了它们的异质放电率。推断的动力学表明了决策计算的吸引子机制。他们的研究结果揭示了感官和动态认知变量的神经编码的统一几何原理。

据悉，大脑代表神经群体协调活动中的感觉变量，其中单个神经元的调谐曲线定义了群体代码的几何形状。是否同样的编码原则适用于动态认知变量仍然未知，因为内部认知过程以独特的时间序列展开，单次试验仅在异质神经群体的不规则峰值中观察到。

附：英文原文

Title: The dynamics and geometry of choice in the premotor cortex

Author: Genkin, Mikhail, Shenoy, Krishna V., Chandrasekaran, Chandramouli, Engel, Tatiana A.

Issue&Volume: 2025-06-25

Abstract: The brain represents sensory variables in the coordinated activity of neural populations, in which tuning curves of single neurons define the geometry of the population code1,2. Whether the same coding principle holds for dynamic cognitive variables remains unknown because internal cognitive processes unfold with a unique time course on single trials observed only in the irregular spiking of heterogeneous neural populations3,4,5,6,7,8. Here we show the existence of such a population code for the dynamics of choice formation in the primate premotor cortex. We developed an approach to simultaneously infer population dynamics and tuning functions of single neurons to the population state. Applied to spike data recorded during decision-making, our model revealed that populations of neurons encoded the same dynamic variable predicting choices, and heterogeneous firing rates resulted from the diverse tuning of single neurons to this decision variable. The inferred dynamics indicated an attractor mechanism for decision computation. Our results reveal a unifying geometric principle for neural encoding of sensory and dynamic cognitive variables.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09199-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09199-1