scholarly journals Tomita H, Ohbayashi M, Nakahara K, Hasegawa I, Miyashita Y

1999 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. E14
Author(s):  
William T. Couldwell
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Association Cortex ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Visual Inputs ◽  
Voluntary Recall ◽  
Show Evidence

Knowledge or experience is voluntarily recalled from memory by reactivation of the neural representations in the cerebral association cortex. In inferior temporal cortex, which serves as the storehouse of visual long-term memory, activation of mnemonic engrams through electric stimulation results in imagery recall in humans, and neurons can be dynamically activated by the necessity for memory recall in monkeys. Neuropsychological studies and previous split-brain experiments predicted that prefrontal cortex exerts executive control upon inferior temporal cortex in memory retrieval; however, no neuronal correlate of this process has ever been detected. Here we show evidence of the top-down signal from prefrontal cortex. In the absence of bottom-up visual inputs, single inferior temporal neurons were activated by the top-down signal, which conveyed information on semantic categorization imposed by visual stimulus-stimulus association. Behavioural performance was severely impaired with loss of the top-down signal. Control experiments confirmed that the signal was transmitted not through a subcortical but through a fronto-temporal cortical pathway. Thus, feedback projections from prefrontal cortex to the posterior association cortex appear to serve the executive control of voluntary recall.

Ventral Prefrontal Cortex

2021 ◽  
pp. 236-284
Author(s):  
Richard E. Passingham
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Visual Inputs ◽  
Superior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
Ventral Prefrontal Cortex

The ventral prefrontal cortex learns to associate objects, faces, and vocalizations, and its connectional fingerprint explains why it alone can do so. It receives visual inputs from the inferior temporal cortex and auditory ones from the superior temporal cortex. It combines these inputs with those from the orbital prefrontal (PF) cortex so as to specify the goal that is currently desirable. This is then transformed into the target of search via connections with the frontal eye field and the target for manual retrieval via connections with the premotor areas. The ventral PF cortex can also learn to form associations between objects, for example by linking them into categories. These can be retrieved from long-term memory via connections with the hippocampus.

Top-Down Signal of Retrieved Information From Prefrontal to Inferior Temporal Cortices

2007 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 1965-1974 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masato Inoue ◽  
Akichika Mikami
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Critical Area ◽  
Retrieval Process ◽  
Multiple Objects ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex

We compared neuronal activities in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and the inferior temporal cortex (IT) during the retrieval of an object from the working memory. About one third of IT neurons showed color- and target-selective (CT) or target-selective (T) response during the color cue period of the serial probe reproduction (SPR) task. These object-selective (CT and T) responses in IT could be correlated with the retrieval process of an object from the memorized multiple objects because no objects were presented during this period. However, proportion of CT and T responses was smaller in IT than in VLPFC, where two thirds of neurons showed object-selective response. In addition, object-selective response started earlier in VLPFC than in IT. These results suggest that VLPFC retrieves particular object information from the working memory and sends the retrieved object information to IT. The fact that the responses in the error trials did not decrease in IT suggests that IT is not a critical area for the retrieval process from the working memory.

scholarly journals Towards understanding of the cortical network underlying associative memory

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1500) ◽  
pp. 2187-2199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takahiro Osada ◽  
Yusuke Adachi ◽  
Hiroko M Kimura ◽  
Yasushi Miyashita
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Association Cortex ◽  
Retrieval Process ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Automatic Retrieval ◽  
Local Circuits

Declarative knowledge and experiences are represented in the association cortex and are recalled by reactivation of the neural representation. Electrophysiological experiments have revealed that associations between semantically linked visual objects are formed in neural representations in the temporal and limbic cortices. Memory traces are created by the reorganization of neural circuits. These regions are reactivated during retrieval and contribute to the contents of a memory. Two different types of retrieval signals are suggested as follows: automatic and active. One flows backward from the medial temporal lobe during the automatic retrieval process, whereas the other is conveyed as a top-down signal from the prefrontal cortex to the temporal cortex during the active retrieval process. By sending the top-down signal, the prefrontal cortex manipulates and organizes to-be-remembered information, devises strategies for retrieval and monitors the outcome. To further understand the neural mechanism of memory, the following two complementary views are needed: how the multiple cortical areas in the brain-wide network interact to orchestrate cognitive functions and how the properties of single neurons and their synaptic connections with neighbouring neurons combine to form local circuits and to exhibit the function of each cortical area. We will discuss some new methodological innovations that tackle these challenges.

scholarly journals Now You See One Letter, Now You See Meaningless Symbols: Perceptual and Semantic Hypnotic Suggestions Reduce Stroop Errors Through Different Neurocognitive Mechanisms

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rinaldo Livio Perri ◽  
Valentina Bianco ◽  
Enrico Facco ◽  
Francesco Di Russo
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Semantic Activation ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Sensory Awareness ◽  
Subject Design ◽  
Medium Level ◽  
Accurate Performance ◽  
Hypnotic Suggestions

Compelling literature has suggested the possibility of adopting hypnotic suggestions to override the Stroop interference effect. However, most of these studies mainly reported behavioral data and were conducted on highly hypnotizable individuals. Thus, the question of the neural locus of the effects and their generalizability remains open. In the present study, we used the Stroop task in a within-subject design to test the neurocognitive effects of two hypnotic suggestions: the perceptual request to focus only on the central letter of the words and the semantic request to observe meaningless symbols. Behavioral results indicated that the two types of suggestions did not alter response time (RT), but both favored more accurate performance compared to the control condition. Both types of suggestions increased sensory awareness and reduced discriminative visual attention, but the perceptual request selectively engaged more executive control of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and the semantic request selectively suppressed the temporal cortex activity devoted to graphemic analysis of the words. The present findings demonstrated that the perceptual and the semantic hypnotic suggestions reduced Stroop errors through common and specific top-down modulations of different neurocognitive processes but left the semantic activation unaltered. Finally, as we also recruited participants with a medium level of hypnotizability, the present data might be considered potentially representative of the majority of the population.

Cognitive control in altruism and self-control: A social cognitive neuroscience perspective

2002 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-260
Author(s):  
Jeremy R. Gray ◽  
Todd S. Braver
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Social Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
The Face

The primrose path and prisoner's dilemma paradigms may require cognitive (executive) control: The active maintenance of context representations in lateral prefrontal cortex to provide top-down support for specific behaviors in the face of short delays or stronger response tendencies. This perspective suggests further tests of whether altruism is a type of self-control, including brain imaging, induced affect, and dual-task studies.

Neural Mechanisms for the Executive Control of Attention

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Earl K. Miller ◽  
Timothy J. Buschman
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Internal Control ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Reciprocal Connections ◽  
Transmission Of Information ◽  
Neural Populations ◽  
Descending Projections ◽  
Selection Of

The prefrontal cortex is a source of internal control of attention as it captures three important components of an executive controller. First, it provides top-down selection of neural representations through descending projections, This top-down input may act by increasing the synchrony of local neural populations, enhancing their connectivity, and boosting the transmission of information. Second, intelligent top-down control of behaviour requires integrating diverse information. Neural representations in prefrontal cortex capture this breadth of information: representing anything from the specific contents of working memory to abstract categories and rules. Third, through reciprocal connections with the basal ganglia, prefrontal cortex neurons are ideally situated to learn the ‘rules’ of behaviour that allow us to know what to attend to in a given situation. These connections may support an iterative, bootstrapping, process that allows for increasingly complex rules to be learned. The prefrontal cortex acts as a generalized executive controller, acting through mechanisms such as attention, to guide thoughts and behaviour.

The representation of stimulus familiarity in anterior inferior temporal cortex

1993 ◽  
Vol 69 (6) ◽  
pp. 1918-1929 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Li ◽  
E. K. Miller ◽  
R. Desimone
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Recording Session ◽  
Nonspecific Effects ◽  
Specific Object ◽  
Fixed Order ◽  
Digitized Pictures ◽  
Object Features ◽  
Role Of It

1. The inferior temporal (IT) cortex plays an important role in both short- and long-term memory for visual patterns. Most previous studies of IT neurons have tested their responses in recency memory tasks, which require that the memory lasts only the length of a single behavioral trial, which may be < 1 s. To determine the role of IT neurons in longer lasting memories, we measured their responses to initially novel stimuli as the stimuli gradually became familiar to the animal. 2. Two rhesus monkeys were trained on a delayed matching to sample (DMS) task with several intervening stimuli between the sample and the final matching stimulus on each trial. The purpose of the task was to ensure that the animal attended to the stimuli and held them in memory, at least temporarily. Unlike in several previous studies, the focus was not on within-trial effects but rather on the incidental memories that built up across trials as the stimuli became familiar. Each cell was tested with a set of 20 novel stimuli (digitized pictures of objects) that the monkey had not seen before. These stimuli were used in a fixed order over the course of an hour-long recording session, and the number of intervening trials between repetitions of a given sample stimulus was varied. 3. The responses of about one-third of the cells recorded in anterior-ventral IT cortex declined systematically as the novel stimuli became familiar. After six to eight repetitions, responses reached a plateau that was approximately 40% of the peak response. Virtually all of these cells also showed selectivity for particular visual stimuli and thus were not "novelty detectors" in the sense of cells that respond to any novel stimulus. Rather, the responses of these cells were a joint function of familiarity and specific object features such as shape and color. A few cells showed increasing responses with repetition over the recording session, but these changes were accompanied by changes in baseline firing rate, suggesting that they were caused by nonspecific effects. 4. The decrement in response with familiarity was stimulus specific and bridged > 150 presentations of other stimuli, the maximum tested. For some cells the maximum decrement in response occurred for those stimuli that initially elicited the largest response. There was no significant change in response to stimuli that were already familiar. 5. The same cells that showed familiarity effects also showed reduced responses to the matching stimuli at the end of each trial, compared with the responses to the samples.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Submodality-dependent spatial organization of neurons coding for visual long-term memory in macaque inferior temporal cortex

2011 ◽  
Vol 1423 ◽  
pp. 30-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hironori Kasahara ◽  
Daigo Takeuchi ◽  
Masaki Takeda ◽  
Toshiyuki Hirabayashi
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory

scholarly journals Dynamic Population Coding of Category Information in Inferior Temporal and Prefrontal Cortex

2008 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 1407-1419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan M. Meyers ◽  
David J. Freedman ◽  
Gabriel Kreiman ◽  
Earl K. Miller ◽  
Tomaso Poggio
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Population Coding ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Category Information ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Dynamic Population

Most electrophysiology studies analyze the activity of each neuron separately. While such studies have given much insight into properties of the visual system, they have also potentially overlooked important aspects of information coded in changing patterns of activity that are distributed over larger populations of neurons. In this work, we apply a population decoding method to better estimate what information is available in neuronal ensembles and how this information is coded in dynamic patterns of neural activity in data recorded from inferior temporal cortex (ITC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) as macaque monkeys engaged in a delayed match-to-category task. Analyses of activity patterns in ITC and PFC revealed that both areas contain “abstract” category information (i.e., category information that is not directly correlated with properties of the stimuli); however, in general, PFC has more task-relevant information, and ITC has more detailed visual information. Analyses examining how information coded in these areas show that almost all category information is available in a small fraction of the neurons in the population. Most remarkably, our results also show that category information is coded by a nonstationary pattern of activity that changes over the course of a trial with individual neurons containing information on much shorter time scales than the population as a whole.

A Comparison of Abstract Rules in the Prefrontal Cortex, Premotor Cortex, Inferior Temporal Cortex, and Striatum

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 974-989 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahmat Muhammad ◽  
Jonathan D. Wallis ◽  
Earl K. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Premotor Cortex ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Dorsal Striatum ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Perceptual Information ◽  
Lateral Prefrontal Cortex

The ability to use abstract rules or principles allows behavior to generalize from specific circumstances. We have previously shown that such rules are encoded in the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and premotor cortex (PMC). Here, we extend these investigations to two other areas directly connected with the PFC and the PMC, the inferior temporal cortex (ITC) and the dorsal striatum (STR). Monkeys were trained to use two abstract rules: “same” or “different”. They had to either hold or release a lever, depending on whether two successively presented pictures were the same or different, and depending on which rule was in effect. The rules and the behavioral responses were reflected most strongly and, on average, tended to be earlier in the PMC followed by the PFC and then the STR; few neurons in the ITC reflected the rules or the actions. By contrast, perceptual information (the identity of the pictures used as sample and test stimuli) was encoded more strongly and earlier in the ITC, followed by the PFC; they had weak, if any, effects on neural activity in the PMC and STR. These findings are discussed in the context of the anatomy and posited functions of these areas.

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