Stability of the behavioral specialization of neurons

2021

IJCRSEE

Task switching is a behavioral phenomenon that serves as a tool for assessment of individual cognitive abilities that becomes especially essential in our multitasking milieu. Factors of task-switching include cognitive load and cognitive effort, mostly derived from task difficulty, as well as age and practice. The analysis of brain activity on the level of single neurons shows that the activations that contribute to task performance and switching differ with respect to the protocol of learning the alternated tasks. We argue that task switching is affected by the history of learning and in turn it changes the structure of individual experience. On this basis we outline perspectives of task switching studies in the fundamental field of long-term memory and applied field of education and therapy.

Section: Single-neuron Activity and The Structure Of Individual Experiencesupporting

confidence: 75%

The Way of Learning Preserved in The Structure of Individual Experience Shapes Task-Switching: Implications for Neuroscience and Education

Созинов

Bakhchina

2021

IJCRSEE

“…Neurophysiological studies have demonstrated that specialization of recently specialized neurons does not change during a single-unit recording lasting for weeks and even months, and that there are many silent neurons in different brain areas (Bradley et al, 1996;Brecht, Schneider & Manns, 2005;Chang et al, 1994;Gorkin & Shevchenko, 1991;Greenberg & Wilson, 2004;Jog et al, 1999;Nicolelis et al, 1997;Schmidt, Bak & McIntosh, 1976;Swadlow & Hicks, 1997;Thompson & Best, 1990;Williams, Rennaker & Kipke, 1999;Wilson & McNaughton, 1993;Woodward, Janak & Chang, 1998).…”

Section: System Development: How An Object Is Constructed 'Inside'mentioning

confidence: 99%

How we fragment the world: the view from inside versus the view from outside

Social Science Information

2008

To construct an environment consisting of artificial objects it is helpful to use descriptions of how individuals behave. Implicitly, we do this on the basis that outward behavior reflects the dynamics of the subjective world and is a deployment of brain processes. But this is only partly correct: outwardly `similar' behavioral acts or environmental patterns may correspond to very different neural activities (the view `from inside' the subject). This is because behavior is the result of the history of behavioral development, such that the brain organizations that correspond to an `object' are the ones that were constructed during the subject's past experience in the course of performing related activity. As the construction of brain organizations takes place in the context of a goal-oriented activity, the very nature of the neural organizations involved stays connected to this goal. Empirically, the goal aspect of the object seems more structuring than the pattern of the object itself. This article compares the view from outside and the view from inside for different kinds of specific experimental situations. We show that `externally' similar objects may correspond to very different brain activations. Alternatively, behaviors and environmental events that seem different to an external observer may actually appear similar when viewed from inside the agent's brain. Experimental findings suggest that what is stable in an `object' for a living organism is its subjective status: at the neural level, meaning for the agent is more important than `objective' form. We also show that the nature of objects as seen from the inside depends on the way they were constructed through the organism's experience: behaviors or objects that may look similar from the outside are in this respect also different from the inside perspective. This has implications for the way we should construct objects in the digital world: building by mimicking the appearance of the physical world as seen from the outside may result in poor design.

“…The average frequency of activity for the entire recording was calculated for each neuron. The exceeding by the frequency of the activity in one or several acts of the average frequency of the activity of a neuron over the whole period of its recording (or during the period preceding the flash) by not less than a factor of 1.5 was taken as activation (details see in Gorkin and Shevchenko, 1991).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain Mechanisms of Embodied Decision-Making

Svarnik

Rozhdestvin

et al. 2022

IJCRSEE

One of the ways to comprehend mental abilities of individuals is to examine their underlying neural processes and mechanisms. To explore the role of cingulate cortical neurons in “mental rehearsal“ immediately before every trial of appetitive instrumental task in well-trained animals, we analyzed recorded single-unit activity in relation to the task-relevant events during task trials and during delay periods inside each trial in the same animals. The results showed that neuronal activity in the rabbit posterior cingulate cortex during the delay consisted mostly of activity of those neurons which were specialized in relation to this task, though the delay periods were not intended to remember previous events. The data indicated that these neuronal groups are involved in the processes of unfolding planned future behavior. Sequences of neuronal events during the delay period (i.e. during” covert behavior” phase), used for decision making, depended on the role of neuron in overt behavior. During delay periods replays (or preplays) started with activity of very selective (“narrow selective”) neurons, specialized in relation to concrete behavioral acts, but late in the delay included activity of such “broadly selective” neurons which might have been related to movements similar in broad categories of behavior. Such results indicate that task-related neurons with different degree of selectivity are all involved in overt and covert phase of experience actualization, which might imply that decision making in rabbits is the embodied cognitive process.