scholarly journals Representations of On-Going Behavior and Future Actions During a Spatial Working Memory Task by a High Firing-Rate Population of Medial Prefrontal Cortex Neurons

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Stout ◽  
Amy L. Griffin
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel S. McAfee ◽  
Yu Liu ◽  
Roy V. Sillitoe ◽  
Detlef H. Heck

AbstractThe cerebellum has long been recognized for its role in tasks involving precise timing, particularly the temporal coordination of movements. Here we asked whether cerebellar might be involved in the temporal coordination of the phases of neuronal oscillations in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and dorsal hippocampus CA1 region (CA1). These two structures and the cerebellum are jointly involved in spatial working memory. The phases of oscillations in the mPFC and CA1 have been shown to reach a stable alignment (coherence) during the decision making process in a spatial working memory task. Here we report that PC simple spike activity in the cerebellar lobulus simplex in awake, head-fixed mice represents specific phase differences between oscillations in the mPFC and CA1. Most PCs represented phase differences in more than one the conventional frequency bands (delta, theta, beta and gamma). Between the 32 PCs analyzed here, phase differences in all frequency bands were represented. PCs representing phase differences in the theta and low gamma bands showed significant population preference for mPFC phase leading CA1 phase. These findings support the possibility of a cerebellar involvement in the temporal coordination of phase relationships between oscillations in the mPFC and CA1.


2011 ◽  
Vol 467-469 ◽  
pp. 1291-1296
Author(s):  
Wen Wen Bai ◽  
Xin Tian

Working memory is one of important cognitive functions and recent studies demonstrate that prefrontal cortex plays an important role in working memory. But the issue that how neural activity encodes during working memory task is still a question that lies at the heart of cognitive neuroscience. The aim of this study is to investigate neural ensemble coding mechanism via average firing rate during working memory task. Neural population activity was measured simultaneously from multiple electrodes placed in prefrontal cortex while rats were performing a working memory task in Y-maze. Then the original data was filtered by a high-pass filtering, spike detection and spike sorting, spatio-temporal trains of neural population were ultimately obtained. Then, the average firing rates were computed in a selected window (500ms) with a moving step (125ms). The results showed that the average firing rate were higher during workinig memory task, along with obvious ensemble activity. Conclusion: The results indicate that the working memory information is encoded with neural ensemble activity.


eLife ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Böhm ◽  
Albert K Lee

The prefrontal cortex (PFC)’s functions are thought to include working memory, as its activity can reflect information that must be temporarily maintained to realize the current goal. We designed a flexible spatial working memory task that required rats to navigate – after distractions and a delay – to multiple possible goal locations from different starting points and via multiple routes. This made the current goal location the key variable to remember, instead of a particular direction or route to the goal. However, across a broad population of PFC neurons, we found no evidence of current-goal-specific memory in any previously reported form – that is differences in the rate, sequence, phase, or covariance of firing. This suggests that such patterns do not hold working memory in the PFC when information must be employed flexibly. Instead, the PFC grouped locations representing behaviorally equivalent task features together, consistent with a role in encoding long-term knowledge of task structure.


2010 ◽  
Vol 209 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul de Saint Blanquat ◽  
Vincent Hok ◽  
Alice Alvernhe ◽  
Etienne Save ◽  
Bruno Poucet

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