Self-regulation of neuronal activity in prefrontal cortex

Despite our best efforts to stay focused on a task, our arousal waxes and wanes over time. Lower levels of arousal are typically associated with drowsiness, whereas higher levels are often associated with stress. These changes in arousal move us away from ideal task performance and manifest as fluctuations in neural activity. We asked whether moment-by-moment neurofeedback could be used to counteract neural fluctuations and thereby regulate arousal levels. Here, we developed an intracortical brain-computer interface (BCI) in which animals used visual neurofeedback to maintain neural population activity in prefrontal cortex near a pre-specified activity target. We found animals used moment-to-moment neurofeedback to reduce neural fluctuations on timescales of seconds to hundreds of milliseconds, and that arousal-related regulation of neural activity was associated with BCI use. Our findings suggest that neurofeedback may enhance or restore regulation of neural activity, with potential clinical applications in conditions where such regulation is impaired.