Cooperative activity of neurons in the nucleus accumbens and frontal cortex in cats trained to select reinforcements of different value

Abstract

Results obtained at the level of the organization of interneuronal interactions of cells in the nucleus accumbens and frontal cortex revealed the features of the involvement of this component in "impulsive" and "self-controlled" behavior, consisting of an increase in bidirectional interactions between the structures of interest, accompanied by simultaneous reductions in the regularity of interactions with increases in "impulsivity" and decreases in "self-control." Long-latency reactions appearing only in "impulsive" animals were associated with decreases in the control of frontal cortex cells by the nucleus accumbens during the signal period, which correlated with the low activity of the network activity of the nucleus accumbens in these animals. Comparison of the patterns of frontal-accumbens interactions as the animals performed a single type of activity demonstrated that the connections in neuron pairs during the presignal and signal periods were similar, while significant differences in patterns were seen during the performance of different types of activity.