Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Role of Cerebellum and Prefrontal Cortex in Memory

Role of Cerebellum and Prefrontal Cortex in Memory

The cerebellum, while traditionally associated with motor control, also plays a crucial role in memory, particularly in procedural memory, which involves learning motor tasks that become automatic through repetition. For example, studies have shown that when the cerebellum is damaged, individuals or animals lose the ability to learn conditioned motor responses, such as the conditioned eye-blink response in classical conditioning experiments with rabbits. This study demonstrates the...

Subliminal Perception

Subliminal Perception

Subliminal perception refers to the processing of sensory information that occurs below the level of conscious awareness. Researchers study subliminal perception by presenting a stimulus, such as a word or image, very quickly, typically around 50 milliseconds. This rapid presentation is often followed by another stimulus, such as a pattern of dots or lines, which blocks further mental processing of the initial stimulus. As a result, if participants cannot identify the initial stimulus better...

Factors Affecting Perception

Factors Affecting Perception

Perception is influenced by perceptual set, context, motivation, and emotion. Perceptual set, or perceptual expectancy, refers to the tendency to perceive things in a particular way, influenced by previous experiences and expectations. This phenomenon affects the interpretation of stimuli, creating a set of mental tendencies and assumptions that impact sensory perceptions of sound, taste, touch, and sight.
An illustrative example of a perceptual set is the scenario where an airline pilot told...

Covalently Linked Protein Regulators

Covalently Linked Protein Regulators

Proteins can undergo many types of post-translational modifications, often in response to changes in their environment. These modifications play an important role in the function and stability of these proteins. Covalently linked molecules include functional groups, such as methyl, acetyl, and phosphate groups, and also small proteins, such as ubiquitin. There are around 200 different types of covalent regulators that have been identified.
These groups modify specific amino acids in a protein....

Perception

Perception

Perception is a fundamental psychological process that enables individuals to organize, interpret, and consciously experience sensory information. This process is crucial for understanding and interacting with the world around us. It includes both bottom-up and top-down processing, each playing a distinct role in how we perceive our environment.
Bottom-up processing begins at the sensory level, where receptors detect external environmental stimuli. These could include the tactile sensation of...

Fixed Action Patterns

Fixed Action Patterns

A fixed action pattern (FAP) is a specific, hard-wired sequence of behaviors that occurs in response to an external stimulus, called a sign stimulus. The behavior is “fixed” because it is essentially unchangeable—proceeding similarly across individuals of a species every time it occurs.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Consensus recommendations for clinical functional MRI applied to language mapping.

Aperture neuro·2026

Same author

MAPK-driven glioma progression and reprogramming of the tumor-associated immune response.

Neuro-oncology·2026

Same author

Human intracranial signal stability tracks anatomical accuracy after electrode reimplantation.

Journal of neural engineering·2026

Same author

Cerebrovascular vulnerability and fibrosis in human brain aneurysms.

Nature neuroscience·2026

Same author

Targeted Connectomic Neuromodulation of the Orbitofrontal Cortex To Treat Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences·2026

Same author

Opposing effects of slow and fast theta synchrony on working memory in the human hippocampal-orbitofrontal network.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 8, 2026

Resting-State Connectivity and Neuroimaging of Prefrontal Cortex Activity During a Block-Design Yoga Asana Practice Using fNIRS

Resting-State Connectivity and Neuroimaging of Prefrontal Cortex Activity During a Block-Design Yoga Asana Practice Using fNIRS

Published on: June 24, 2025

Persistent neuronal activity in human prefrontal cortex links perception and action.

Matar Haller¹, John Case², Nathan E Crone³

¹Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.

Nature Human Behaviour

|July 3, 2018

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Humans flexibly adapt behavior through persistent neural activation, a domain-general process centered in the prefrontal cortex, transforming sensory input into action for successful task performance.

More Related Videos

Author Spotlight: Studying Drug Impacts on Brain Signals Using Dual LFP Recording Protocol in Mice

Author Spotlight: Studying Drug Impacts on Brain Signals Using Dual LFP Recording Protocol in Mice

Published on: February 16, 2024

Combined Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Electroencephalography of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex

Combined Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Electroencephalography of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex

Published on: August 17, 2018

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Feb 8, 2026

Resting-State Connectivity and Neuroimaging of Prefrontal Cortex Activity During a Block-Design Yoga Asana Practice Using fNIRS

Resting-State Connectivity and Neuroimaging of Prefrontal Cortex Activity During a Block-Design Yoga Asana Practice Using fNIRS

Published on: June 24, 2025

Author Spotlight: Studying Drug Impacts on Brain Signals Using Dual LFP Recording Protocol in Mice

Author Spotlight: Studying Drug Impacts on Brain Signals Using Dual LFP Recording Protocol in Mice

Published on: February 16, 2024

Combined Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Electroencephalography of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex

Combined Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Electroencephalography of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex

Published on: August 17, 2018

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Neuroscience
Decision-Making

Background:

The prefrontal cortex is crucial for flexible decision-making and adaptive behavior.
The precise neural mechanisms translating sensory information into action remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the temporal and spatial dynamics of neuronal activity during cognitive tasks.
To identify the neural substrates underlying flexible behavioral responses.

Main Methods:

Direct human cortical recordings using broadband gamma signals.
Analysis of neural activity in sixteen participants across diverse self-paced cognitive tasks.

Main Results:

A consistent, domain- and modality-independent pattern of persistent stimulus-to-response neural activation was identified.
This neural activation encodes stimulus features and accurately predicts motor output.
The pattern was observed across a distributed brain network, with a focus in the prefrontal cortex.

Conclusions:

Persistent neural activation serves as a functional substrate for transforming perception into action.
This mechanism is critical for implementing successful responses and enabling flexible behavior.
The findings reveal a domain-general neural process underlying adaptive decision-making.