Resonant cholinergic dynamics in cognitive and motor decision-making:Attention, category learning, and choice in neocortex, superior colliculus, and optic tectum
Freely behaving organisms need to rapidly calibrate their perceptual, cognitive, and motor decisions based on continuously changing environmental conditions. These plastic changes include sharpening or broadening of cognitive and motor attention and learning to match the behavioral demands that are...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2016-01-01
|
| Series: | Frontiers in Neuroscience |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnins.2015.00501/full |
| _version_ | 1818263572317208576 |
|---|---|
| author | Stephen eGrossberg Jesse ePalma Massimiliano eVersace |
| author_facet | Stephen eGrossberg Jesse ePalma Massimiliano eVersace |
| author_sort | Stephen eGrossberg |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Freely behaving organisms need to rapidly calibrate their perceptual, cognitive, and motor decisions based on continuously changing environmental conditions. These plastic changes include sharpening or broadening of cognitive and motor attention and learning to match the behavioral demands that are imposed by changing environmental statistics. This article proposes that a shared circuit design for such flexible decision-making is used in specific cognitive and motor circuits, and that both types of circuits use acetylcholine to modulate choice selectivity. Such task-sensitive control is proposed to control thalamocortical choice of the critical features that are cognitively attended and that are incorporated through learning into prototypes of visual recognition categories. A cholinergically-modulated process of vigilance control determines if a recognition category and its attended features are abstract (low vigilance) or concrete (high vigilance). Homologous neural mechanisms of cholinergic modulation are proposed to focus attention and learn a multimodal map within the deeper layers of superior colliculus. This map enables visual, auditory, and planned movement commands to compete for attention, leading to selection of a winning position that controls where the next saccadic eye movement will go. Such map learning may be viewed as a kind of attentive motor category learning. The article hereby explicates a link between attention, learning, and cholinergic modulation during decision making within both cognitive and motor systems. Homologs between the mammalian superior colliculus and the avian optic tectum lead to predictions about how multimodal map learning may occur in the avian brain and how such learning may be modulated by acetycholine. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T19:21:09Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-a5f6609894ee45ff9d112e2294850d44 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1662-453X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T19:21:09Z |
| publishDate | 2016-01-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Neuroscience |
| spelling | doaj.art-a5f6609894ee45ff9d112e2294850d442022-12-22T00:14:36ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Neuroscience1662-453X2016-01-01910.3389/fnins.2015.00501160202Resonant cholinergic dynamics in cognitive and motor decision-making:Attention, category learning, and choice in neocortex, superior colliculus, and optic tectumStephen eGrossberg0Jesse ePalma1Massimiliano eVersace2Boston UniversityBoston UniversityBoston UniversityFreely behaving organisms need to rapidly calibrate their perceptual, cognitive, and motor decisions based on continuously changing environmental conditions. These plastic changes include sharpening or broadening of cognitive and motor attention and learning to match the behavioral demands that are imposed by changing environmental statistics. This article proposes that a shared circuit design for such flexible decision-making is used in specific cognitive and motor circuits, and that both types of circuits use acetylcholine to modulate choice selectivity. Such task-sensitive control is proposed to control thalamocortical choice of the critical features that are cognitively attended and that are incorporated through learning into prototypes of visual recognition categories. A cholinergically-modulated process of vigilance control determines if a recognition category and its attended features are abstract (low vigilance) or concrete (high vigilance). Homologous neural mechanisms of cholinergic modulation are proposed to focus attention and learn a multimodal map within the deeper layers of superior colliculus. This map enables visual, auditory, and planned movement commands to compete for attention, leading to selection of a winning position that controls where the next saccadic eye movement will go. Such map learning may be viewed as a kind of attentive motor category learning. The article hereby explicates a link between attention, learning, and cholinergic modulation during decision making within both cognitive and motor systems. Homologs between the mammalian superior colliculus and the avian optic tectum lead to predictions about how multimodal map learning may occur in the avian brain and how such learning may be modulated by acetycholine.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnins.2015.00501/fullAcetylcholineAttentionresonancerecognitioncategory learningsuperior colliculus |
| spellingShingle | Stephen eGrossberg Jesse ePalma Massimiliano eVersace Resonant cholinergic dynamics in cognitive and motor decision-making:Attention, category learning, and choice in neocortex, superior colliculus, and optic tectum Frontiers in Neuroscience Acetylcholine Attention resonance recognition category learning superior colliculus |
| title | Resonant cholinergic dynamics in cognitive and motor decision-making:Attention, category learning, and choice in neocortex, superior colliculus, and optic tectum |
| title_full | Resonant cholinergic dynamics in cognitive and motor decision-making:Attention, category learning, and choice in neocortex, superior colliculus, and optic tectum |
| title_fullStr | Resonant cholinergic dynamics in cognitive and motor decision-making:Attention, category learning, and choice in neocortex, superior colliculus, and optic tectum |
| title_full_unstemmed | Resonant cholinergic dynamics in cognitive and motor decision-making:Attention, category learning, and choice in neocortex, superior colliculus, and optic tectum |
| title_short | Resonant cholinergic dynamics in cognitive and motor decision-making:Attention, category learning, and choice in neocortex, superior colliculus, and optic tectum |
| title_sort | resonant cholinergic dynamics in cognitive and motor decision making attention category learning and choice in neocortex superior colliculus and optic tectum |
| topic | Acetylcholine Attention resonance recognition category learning superior colliculus |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnins.2015.00501/full |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT stephenegrossberg resonantcholinergicdynamicsincognitiveandmotordecisionmakingattentioncategorylearningandchoiceinneocortexsuperiorcolliculusandoptictectum AT jesseepalma resonantcholinergicdynamicsincognitiveandmotordecisionmakingattentioncategorylearningandchoiceinneocortexsuperiorcolliculusandoptictectum AT massimilianoeversace resonantcholinergicdynamicsincognitiveandmotordecisionmakingattentioncategorylearningandchoiceinneocortexsuperiorcolliculusandoptictectum |