{"id":242438,"date":"2026-08-09T11:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T16:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/similar-response-dynamics-represent-opposite-behaviors-and-rewards-in-the-frontal-cortex"},"modified":"2026-08-09T11:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T16:59:11","slug":"similar-response-dynamics-represent-opposite-behaviors-and-rewards-in-the-frontal-cortex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/similar-response-dynamics-represent-opposite-behaviors-and-rewards-in-the-frontal-cortex","title":{"rendered":"Similar Response Dynamics Represent Opposite Behaviors and Rewards in the Frontal Cortex"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

The frontal cortex (FC) has been implicated in many of the cognitive and executive control functions required for goal-directed behavior (Komura et al., 2001<\/a>; Bruni et al., 2015<\/a>; Duan et al., 2021<\/a>; Friedman and Robbins, 2021<\/a>), including decision-making (Coley et al., 2021<\/a>; Liu et al., 2021<\/a>), response inhibition (Schiller et al., 2014<\/a>; Li et al., 2020<\/a>), working memory (O\u2019Reilly and Frank, 2006<\/a>; Miller et al., 2018<\/a>; Wilhelm et al., 2023<\/a>), attentional control (Zikopoulos and Barbas, 2007<\/a>; Gregorlou et al., 2014<\/a>), and adaptive modulation of sensory filters (Banerjee et al., 2020<\/a>). In the auditory system, cortical neurons can rapidly adapt their receptive field tuning and spectrotemporal selectivity reflecting changing stimulus context and task conditions (Fritz et al., 2003<\/a>, 2005<\/a>, 2007<\/a>; David et al., 2012<\/a>; Yin et al., 2014<\/a>; Elgueda et al., 2019<\/a>). This task-related receptive field plasticity may be shaped by changing functional connectivity between FC and auditory cortex (Fritz et al., 2010<\/a>; Sheikhattar et al., 2018<\/a>; Yin et al., 2020<\/a>). This adaptive capacity is critical since context can transform the behavioral meaning of incoming stimuli and even cause the same sound to mean two opposite things in different circumstances.<\/p>\n

In this study, we explored the role of the FC in this adaptive decision-making process by employing the same sounds to signify diametrically opposite meanings depending on task context and reward valence. In one behavioral paradigm, upon hearing a Target sound, animals initiated licking to obtain a water reward (positive reward; P-paradigm). In the other paradigm, animals learned to stop licking for water when presented with the same Target stimulus in order to avoid a mild shock (negative reward; N-paradigm). In an earlier study (David et al., 2012<\/a>), we found that such different task reward structures and stimulus-action contingencies induced two strikingly distinct forms of receptive field plasticity in primary auditory cortex (A1). In light of the strong top-down projections from the FC to auditory cortex (AC) influencing dynamic sensory filters (Caras and Sanes, 2017<\/a>; Bimbard et al., 2018<\/a>; Schneider et al., 2018<\/a>; Winkowski et al., 2018<\/a>; Mittelstadt and Kanold, 2023<\/a>; Macedo-Lima et al., 2024<\/a>), we wondered whether the differential receptive plasticity was driven by distinct FC representations of the two opposite behavioral paradigms.<\/p>\n

Therefore, we trained two groups of ferrets on two opposite auditory categorical Go-NoGo paradigms, requiring each group to discriminate noncompact sound categories (Yin et al., 2016<\/a>, 2020<\/a>). Task stimuli varied along two acoustic feature dimensions: spectral frequency (TN-task) or temporal modulation rate (amplitude-modulated white noise, AM-task). As indicated above, in the P-paradigm group, ferrets learned to lick for water reward when Target stimuli were presented and refrained from licking to Reference stimuli. In contrast, the group that learned the N-paradigm performed the opposite behavior and refrained from licking for water when Target stimuli were presented but could lick freely to Reference sounds (Fig. 1 A<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The frontal cortex (FC) has been implicated in many of the cognitive and executive control functions required for goal-directed behavior (Komura et al., 2001; Bruni et al., 2015; Duan et al., 2021; Friedman and Robbins, 2021), including decision-making (Coley et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2021), response inhibition (Schiller et al., 2014; Li et al., [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}