Figure 4

Task-related modulations during the DELAY epoch. (A) Average population activity for Task cells showing a preference for reach-to-press movements. In the upper panel, population SDFs are shown separately for the Reach-to-Grasp (in blue) and the Reach-to-Press (in red) tasks, averaged across background conditions. Alignment of neural data was identical to what described for Fig. 3. Shaded red and blue areas indicate 95% confidence intervals (CI) computed using a subsampling procedure (see Methods). In the lower panel, the thin black line represents positive values (>0) of the difference between the lower CI limit of the curve identifying the preferred task and the upper CI limit of the curve identifying the non-preferred task. Asterisks reported on the same graph represent instead the results of two-tailed paired Wilcoxon tests comparing experimental conditions, performed on the activity measured in consecutive 100 ms time windows along the whole duration of the trial, beginning after the presentation of the fixation LED (epoch FIX); * in gray = p < 0.05; * in black = p < 0.01. (B) Average population activity for Task cells showing a preference for reach-to-grasp movements. All conventions as in panel A. (C) Population SDFs represent the temporal unfolding of task preference across the whole population of Task cells, as assessed by averaging spiking activity during the preferred (green) vs. unpreferred task (dark green), again across background conditions. All conventions as in panel A.