ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2018
Roles of Prefrontal Cortex and Mediodorsal Thalamus in Task Engagement and Behavioral Flexibility.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers.
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Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed.
- Increased global cognition correlates with increased thalamo-temporal connectivity in response to targeted cognitive training for recent onset schizophrenia.Schizophrenia research · 2020Trial
- Reusable modular architecture enables flexible cognitive operations in the mouse brain and artificial recurrent networks.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
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- Psilocybin selectively rescues cognitive flexibility impairments caused by aberrant prefrontal error signaling.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Galanin receptor 1 expressing neurons in hippocampal-prefrontal circuitry modulate goal directed attention and impulse control.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Loss contexts enhance dorsolateral prefrontal interpersonal neural synchrony during successful human deceptive recommendations.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Retrosplenial cortex enables context-dependent goal-directed sensorimotor transformation.eLife · 2026Article
- Prefrontal parvalbumin neurons as a target for enhancing cognition in non-pathological and 22q11.2 microdeletion syndrome mice.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Communication between the medial frontal cortex and mediodorsal thalamus is required for timing performance in rats.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2026Article
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- Divergent representation and processing of task cues in sensory and prefrontal cortices of preterm-born mice.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Reusable modular architecture enables flexible cognitive operations.Research square · 2025Article
- An ace in the hole? Opportunities and limits of using mice to understand schizophrenia neurobiology.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Review
- Galanin receptor 1 expressing neurons in hippocampal-prefrontal circuitry modulate goal directed attention and impulse control.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Cognitive control of behavior and hippocampal information processing without medial prefrontal cortex.eLife · 2025Article
- The neural circuit mechanism for auditory responses in the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus of awake mice.Communications biology · 2025Article
- The Role of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Ego Dissolution and Emotional Arousal During the Psychedelic State.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Mediodorsal thalamus regulates task uncertainty to enable cognitive flexibility.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Auditory evoked-potential abnormalities in a mouse model of 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome and their interactions with hearing impairment.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Applied Motor Noise Affects Specific Learning Mechanisms during Short-Term Adaptation to Novel Movement Dynamics.eNeuro · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Behavioral tasks involving auditory cues activate inhibitory neurons within auditory cortex, leading to a reduction in the amplitude of auditory evoked response potentials (ERPs). One hypothesis is that this process, termed "task engagement," may enable context-dependent behaviors. Here we set out to determine (1) whether the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a role in task engagement and (2) how task engagement relates to the context-dependent processing of auditory cues in male and female mice performing a decision-making task that can be guided by either auditory or visual cues. We found that, in addition to auditory ERP suppression, task engagement is associated with increased mPFC activity and an increase in theta band (4-7 Hz) synchronization between the mPFC and auditory cortex. Optogenetically inhibiting the mPFC eliminates the task engagement-induced auditory ERP suppression, while also preventing mice from switching between auditory and visual cue-based rules. However, mPFC inhibition, which eliminates task engagement-induced auditory ERP suppression, did not prevent mice from making decisions based on auditory cues. Furthermore, a more specific manipulation, selective disruption of mPFC outputs to the mediodorsal (MD) thalamus, is sufficient to prevent switching between auditory and visual rules but does not affect auditory ERPs. Based on these findings, we conclude that (1) the mPFC contributes to both task engagement and behavioral flexibility; (2) mPFC-MD projections are important for behavioral flexibility but not task engagement; and (3) task engagement, evidenced by the suppression of cortical responses to sensory input, is not required for sensory cue-guided decision making.
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