Characteristics of unit activity in the monkey prefrontal cortex

Батуев, А. С.; Pirogov, A. A.; Орлов, А. А.

doi:10.1007/bf01063702

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Studies using delayed response tasks with increased spatiotemporal complexity report few single neurons with persistent firing during the entire delay period. Instead, many neurons fire transiently, during brief time intervals (Batuev et al, 1979;Lundqvist et al, 2016;Roussy et al, 2022). Thus, researchers have proposed alternative mechanisms to persistent firing, such as short-term synaptic storage (Stokes, 2015;Pals et al, 2020), or dynamic coding (Lundqvist et al, 2016;Parthasarathy et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural sequences in primate prefrontal cortex encode working memory in naturalistic environments

Roussy

Busch

Luna

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Working memory is the ability to briefly remember and manipulate information after it becomes unavailable to the senses. The mechanisms supporting working memory coding in the primate brain remain controversial. Here we demonstrate that microcircuits in layers 2/3 of the primate lateral prefrontal cortex dynamically represent memory content in a naturalistic task through sequential activation of single neurons. We simultaneously recorded the activity of hundreds of neurons in the lateral prefrontal cortex of macaque monkeys during a naturalistic visuospatial working memory task set in a virtual environment. We found that the sequential activation of single neurons encoded trajectories to target locations held in working memory. Neural sequences were not a mere successive activation of cells with memory fields at specific spatial locations, but an abstract representation of the subject's trajectory to the target. Neural sequences were less correlated to target trajectories during perception and were not found during working memory tasks lacking the spatiotemporal structure of the naturalistic task. Finally, ketamine administration distorted neural sequences, selectively decreasing working memory performance. Our results indicate that neurons in the lateral prefrontal cortex causally encode working memory in naturalistic conditions via complex and temporally precise activation patterns.

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