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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2022.11.16.516719

Subspace partitioning in human prefrontal cortex resolves cognitive interference

Weber, J.·Iwama, G.·Solbakk, A.-K.·Blenkmann, A. O.·Larsson, P. G.·Ivanovic, J.·Knight, R. T.·Endestad, T.·Helfrich, R.
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Abstract

Human prefrontal cortex (PFC) constitutes the structural basis underlying flexible cognitive control, where mixed-selective neural populations encode multiple task-features to guide subsequent behavior. The mechanisms by which the brain simultaneously encodes multiple task-relevant variables while minimizing interference from task-irrelevant features remain unknown. Leveraging intracranial recordings from the human PFC, we first demonstrate that competition between co-existing representations of past and present task variables incurs a behavioral switch cost. Our results reveal that this interference between past and present states in the PFC is resolved through coding partitioning into distinct low-dimensional neural states; thereby strongly attenuating behavioral switch costs. In sum, these findings uncover a fundamental coding mechanism that constitutes a central building block of flexible cognitive control.

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Weber, J., Iwama, G., Solbakk, A.-K., Blenkmann, A. O., Larsson, P. G., Ivanovic, J., Knight, R. T., Endestad, T., Helfrich, R.. 2022-11-16. Subspace partitioning in human prefrontal cortex resolves cognitive interference. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.16.516719

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