Summary Neurons in primate lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) play a critical role in working memory (WM) and cognitive strategies. Consistent with adaptive coding models, responses of these neurons are not fixed, but flexibly adjust based on cognitive demands. However, little is known about how these adjustments affect population codes. Here, we investigated ensemble coding in LPFC while monkeys implemented different strategies in a WM task. Although single neurons were less tuned when monkeys used more stereotyped strategies, task information could still be accurately decoded from neural populations. This was due to changes in population codes that distributed information among a greater number of neurons, each contributing less to the overall population. Moreover, this shift occurred for task-relevant, but not irrelevant, information. These results demonstrate that cognitive strategies that impose structure on information held in mind rearrange population codes in LPFC, such that information becomes more distributed among neurons in an ensemble.

Funding National Institute of Mental Health Grant R01 MH121480 (to E.L.R.) National Institute of Mental Health Grant R01 MH097990, NINDS R01 NS116623, NIMH R01 MH117763 (to J.D.W.) Taiwan Top University Strategic Alliance Graduate Fellowship USA-UCB-100-S01 (to F.-K.C.)