Roles of the prefrontal neurons in delayed matching-to-category task: a modeling study

In understanding the environment around us, we do not perceive our exact sensory input as is. Instead, we divide the world into meaningful groups or categories. This categorization function is fundamental to cognitive processes. Such categories are processed in brain areas such as the inferior temporal cortex (ITC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC). To clarify the fundamental neuronal mechanisms involved in category information, we simulated the delayed matching-to-category task in Freedman et al., (Science 291(5502) (2001) 312) and showed that category selectivity in the PFC reflected the interaction between the selectivity of complex stimuli in the ITC and task-dependency in the motor area.