doi: 10.53962/th9g-sjzj
Originally published on 2023-08-15 under a CC0 Public Domain Dedication
Vinicius Pereira Mateus Borges
The dorsal medial and ventral medial prefrontal cortices (dmPFC and vmPFC) are involved in executive function processes such as working memory, inhibitory control, and decision making. The functions of these two regions have been extensively studied with the 5-choice serial-reaction time task (5CSRTT) for many decades, however, all of the current literature has investigated what happens after the animal has already learned the 5CSRTT: there is no current knowledge on what happens in the brain of a rat during the learning stages of the 5CSRTT. Therefore, the aim of this study was to characterize the training-induced development of neuronal activity of dmPFC and vmPFC in the rat brain during the learning stages of the 5CSRTT using fiber photometry. We found that the dmPFC becomes more active in later stages of learning while the vmPFC becomes less ac-tive in later stages of the 5CSRTT. This difference reflects the different connections of these brain regions and it may be caused by the development of different cognitive processes: the dmPFC is involved in motor coordination and task accuracy, and it becomes more active as the task becomes more difficult; whilst the vmPFC is involved in integration of sensory input and impulsivity, and it becomes less active as the task becomes more habitual.