Reconciling persistent and dynamic hypotheses of working memory coding in prefrontal cortex

Sean E. Cavanagh (), John P. Towers, Joni D. Wallis, Laurence T. Hunt and Steven W. Kennerley ()
Additional contact information
Sean E. Cavanagh: University College London
John P. Towers: University College London
Joni D. Wallis: University of California at Berkeley
Laurence T. Hunt: University College London
Steven W. Kennerley: University College London

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract Competing accounts propose that working memory (WM) is subserved either by persistent activity in single neurons or by dynamic (time-varying) activity across a neural population. Here, we compare these hypotheses across four regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in an oculomotor-delayed-response task, where an intervening cue indicated the reward available for a correct saccade. WM representations were strongest in ventrolateral PFC neurons with higher intrinsic temporal stability (time-constant). At the population-level, although a stable mnemonic state was reached during the delay, this tuning geometry was reversed relative to cue-period selectivity, and was disrupted by the reward cue. Single-neuron analysis revealed many neurons switched to coding reward, rather than maintaining task-relevant spatial selectivity until saccade. These results imply WM is fulfilled by dynamic, population-level activity within high time-constant neurons. Rather than persistent activity supporting stable mnemonic representations that bridge subsequent salient stimuli, PFC neurons may stabilise a dynamic population-level process supporting WM.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05873-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-05873-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05873-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().