The distributed temporal activity in neuronal circuits of the prefrontal cortex combines emotional information with episodic and spatial memory to guide behavioural action. Single neurons of often unknown identity have been shown to exhibit specific firing patterns during spatial navigation and decision-making tasks. The cerebral cortex consists of highly diverse neuronal types with distinct synaptic connectivity, molecular expression profile and contribution to network activity. Neurons can be divided into excitatory pyramidal cells, which use glutamate as a neurotransmitter and give both local and long-range axonal projections, and inhibitory interneurons, which are GABAergic and control the activity and timing of pyramidal cells mainly through local axons. These neurons can be further subdivided on the basis of their distinct axo-dendritic arborisations, subcellular post-synaptic targets, and by their differential expression of signalling molecules, including receptors, ion channels, neuropeptides, transcription factors and Ca
2+ binding proteins. We aim to determine how distinct types of neuron support the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex.
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