The Differential Weights of Motivational and Task Performance Measures on Medial and Lateral Frontal Neural Activity

Behavioral adaptations are triggered by different constraints given by rules, and are informed by outcomes, or motivational changes. Neural activity in multiple frontal areas is modulated during behavioral adaptations, but the source of these modulations and the nature of the mechanisms involved are unclear. Here we tested how different variables related to changes in task performance and to behavioral adaptation impact the amplitude of event-related local field potentials (LFPs) in the lateral prefrontal and midcingulate cortex of male rhesus macaques. We found that the behavioral task used induced consistently different types of performance modulation: in relation to task difficulty (imposed by the experimental setup), to successes and errors, and to the time spent in the task. Difficulty had a significant effect on monkeys’ accuracy and reaction times. Interestingly, there is also a strong interaction between difficulty and trial success on the reaction times variation. However, LFP modulations were mostly related to reaction times, touch position, feedback valence and time-in-session, with little, if any, effect of difficulty. Hence, difficulty modulated performance but not LFP activity. This suggests that, in our experimental design, execution, regulation, and motivation-related factors are the main factors influencing medial and lateral frontal activity.