When exploring a new environment, mice make use of a unique long-distance connection in the brain that prompts them to pay attention to the most salient features of the environment, according to new research from UC San Francisco. The link, originating in the prefrontal cortex and stretching to the hippocampus, provides evidence of how the brain’s higher cognitive regions refine operations occurring in distant brain areas.
“This circuit is a gateway to understanding how the brain allows the prefrontal cortex to exert top-down regulation of other parts of the brain,” said Vikaas Sohal, MD, PhD, senior author on the study, published April 28, 2022, in Cell. “It’s a type of long-range, inhibitory pathway connecting two brain regions that hasn’t been seen before.”
The prefrontal cortex (PFC), sometimes thought of as the “CEO of the brain,” controls executive functions like attention,…
