Autocorrelation structure in the macaque dorsolateral, but not orbital or polar, prefrontal cortex predicts response-coding strength in a visually cued strategy task

In previous work, we studied the activity of neurons in the dorsolateral (PFdl), orbital (PFo), and polar (PFp) prefrontal cortex while monkeys performed a strategy task with 2 spatial goals. A cue instructed 1 of 2 strategies in each trial: stay with the previous goal or shift to the alternative goal. Each trial started with a fixation period, followed by a cue. Subsequently, a delay period was followed by a “go” signal that instructed the monkeys to choose one goal. After each choice, feedback was provided. In this study, we focused on the temporal receptive fields of the neurons, as measured by the decay in autocorrelation (time constant) during the fixation period, and examined the relationship with response and strategy coding. The temporal receptive field in PFdl correlated with the response-related but not with the strategy-related modulation in the delay and the feedback periods: neurons with longer time constants in PFdl tended to show stronger and more prolonged response coding. No such correlation was found in PFp or PFo. These findings demonstrate that the temporal specialization of neurons for temporally extended computations is predictive of response coding, and neurons in PFdl, but not PFp or PFo, develop such predictive properties.