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Seminar✓ Recording AvailableNeuroscience

Deciding to stop deciding: A cortical-subcortical circuit for forming and terminating a decision

Michael Shadlen

Prof

Columbia University

Schedule
Thursday, June 10, 2021

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Schedule

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

5:00 PM America/Los_Angeles

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Host: Caltech SocDecNeuro

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Recording provided by the organiser.

Event Information

Domain

Neuroscience

Original Event

View source

Host

Caltech SocDecNeuro

Duration

70 minutes

Abstract

The neurobiology of decision-making is informed by neurons capable of representing information over time scales of seconds. Such neurons were initially characterized in studies of spatial working memory, motor planning (e.g., Richard Andersen lab) and spatial attention. For decision-making, such neurons emit graded spike rates, that represent the accumulated evidence for or against a choice. They establish the conduit between the formation of the decision and its completion, usually in the form of a commitment to an action, even if provisional. Indeed, many decisions appear to arise through an accumulation of noisy samples of evidence to a terminating threshold, or bound. Previous studies show that single neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) represent the accumulation of evidence when monkeys make decisions about the direction of random dot motion (RDM) and express their decision with a saccade to the neuron’s preferred target. The mechanism of termination (the bound) is elusive. LIP is interconnected with other brain regions that also display decision-related activity. Whether these areas play roles in the decision process that are similar to or fundamentally different from that of LIP is unclear. I will present new unpublished experiments that begin to resolve these issues by recording from populations of neurons simultaneously in LIP and one of its primary targets, the superior colliculus (SC), while monkeys make difficult perceptual decisions.

Topics

cortical-subcortical circuitdecision terminationdecision-makingevidence accumulationlateral intraparietal areaneural representationrandom dot motionsaccadesuperior colliculus

About the Speaker

Michael Shadlen

Prof

Columbia University

Contact & Resources

Personal Website

shadlenlab.columbia.edu

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