Anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortical areas specific activity and interactions during behavioral adaptation
Acting optimally in uncertain environments requires evaluating costs and benefits of choosing each alternative. It also requires to flexibly regulate between exploration for and exploitation of resources. One current hypothesis is that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), involved in action valuation, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), involved in cognitive control, interact to elaborate an optimal regulation of behaviour. Studies achieved during this thesis allowed to precise the role of ACC in the detection and valuation of action outcomes as well as to describe the interactions with dlPFC in a cognitive control loop. Thanks to neurophysiological recordings in behaving monkey our work give new clues on the sequential activation of ACC and dlPFC during adaptation. The analyses of local field potentials allowed us to suggest hypotheses on the underlying oscillatory mechanisms, in particular on low frequency communications between ACC and dlPFC, and their modulation during exploration and exploitation.