Recruitment of the premotor cortex during arithmetic operations by the monkey.

Arithmetic operations are complex mental processes rooted in the abstract concept of numerosity. Despite the significance, the neural architecture responsible for these operations has remained largely uncharted. In this study, we explored the presence of specific neuronal activity in the dorsal premotor cortex of the monkey dedicated to numerical addition and subtraction.

Representation of the Numerosity 'zero' in the Parietal Cortex of the Monkey.

Zero is a fundamental concept in mathematics and modern science. Empty sets are considered a precursor of the concept of numerosity zero and a part of numerical continuum. How is numerosity zero (the absence of visual items) represented in the primate cortex? To address this question, we trained monkeys to perform numerical operations including numerosity zero.

Contribution of parvalbumin and somatostatin-expressing GABAergic neurons to slow oscillations and the balance in beta-gamma oscillations across cortical layers.

Cortical interneurons are classified into several subtypes that contribute to cortical oscillatory activity. Parvalbumin (PV)-expressing cells, a type of inhibitory interneuron, are involved in the gamma oscillations of local field potentials (LFPs). Under ketamine-xylazine anesthesia or sleep, mammalian cortical circuits exhibit slow oscillations in which the active-up state and silent-down state alternate at ~1 Hz.

Frequency-dependent entrainment of neocortical slow oscillation to repeated optogenetic stimulation in the anesthetized rat.

Local field potential (LFP) slow oscillation (<1Hz) is typically observed in the cortex during sleep or while under anesthesia and reflects synchronous activation/inactivation of the cortical neuron population. The oscillation can be entrained to repeated external sensory stimuli. To better understand the neural mechanism underlying slow-oscillation generation and its entrainment to external stimuli, we delivered optical stimulation to the cortex of anesthetized rats that exogenously expressed the light-sensitive cation channel channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) and simultaneously monitored LFPs across cortical layers.