%0 Journal Article %A Jan Weber %A Gabriela Iwama %A Anne-Kristin Solbakk %A Alejandro O. Blenkmann %A Pal G. Larsson %A Jugoslav Ivanovic %A Robert T. Knight %A Tor Endestad %A Randolph Helfrich %T Subspace partitioning in human prefrontal cortex resolves cognitive interference %D 2022 %R 10.1101/2022.11.16.516719 %J bioRxiv %P 2022.11.16.516719 %X Human prefrontal cortex (PFC) constitutes the structural basis underlying flexible cognitive control, where mixed-selective neural populations encode multiple task-features to guide subsequent behavior. The mechanisms by which the brain simultaneously encodes multiple task-relevant variables while minimizing interference from task-irrelevant features remain unknown. Leveraging intracranial recordings from the human PFC, we first demonstrate that competition between co-existing representations of past and present task variables incurs a behavioral switch cost. Our results reveal that this interference between past and present states in the PFC is resolved through coding partitioning into distinct low-dimensional neural states; thereby strongly attenuating behavioral switch costs. In sum, these findings uncover a fundamental coding mechanism that constitutes a central building block of flexible cognitive control.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. %U https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2022/11/16/2022.11.16.516719.full.pdf