ABSTRACT RULE GUIDED DECISION-MAKING - CONCOMITANT PREFRONTAL NEURONAL ACTIVITIES AND INTER-AREA INTERACTIONS ACROSS TASK EPOCHS

The differential contribution of different sub-regions of primate prefrontal cortex to abstract rule guided decision-making has been established by circumscribed lesion studies and associated dissociations and double-dissociations (e.g Buckley et al., 2008, Science; Mansouri et al., 2015, PNAS) and more recently by targeted neurostimulation to FPC (Ainsworth et al., 2025, PLOS Biol.). Some of the neuronal mechanisms of individual areas such as dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), frontopolar cortex (FPC), and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) have also been individually reported. Much less is known about how the neuronal mechanisms in these areas are distinguished and how inter-area interactions are concomitant to behaviour. We address this here by recording simultaneously from four Utah arrays in DLPFC, VLPFC, FPC, and OFC. We report how robust rule-related activities are present in all areas, though strongest in DLPFC and FPC. We report differential neuronal population dynamics between all four areas according to trial-epoch, and we report preliminary data on dynamic inter-area interactions (focussing on FPC interactions with DLPFC and VLPFC) according to trial-epoch and performance.