Compressed Timeline of Recent Experience in Monkey Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
Name
jocn_a_01273.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
3.34 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
d5186f2c024fa7d3d0dc3012123a4d20
Author(s)
Tiganj, Zoran
Cromer, Jason A
Roy, Jefferson E
Miller, Earl K
Howard, Marc W
Date Issued
2018
Journal
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Publisher
MIT Press - Journals
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2018 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cognitive theories suggest that working memory maintains not only the identity of recently presented stimuli but also a sense of the elapsed time since the stimuli were presented. Previous studies of the neural underpinnings of working memory have focused on sustained firing, which can account for maintenance of the stimulus identity, but not for representation of the elapsed time. We analyzed single-unit recordings from the lateral prefrontal cortex of macaque monkeys during performance of a delayed match-to-category task. Each sample stimulus triggered a consistent sequence of neurons, with each neuron in the sequence firing during a circumscribed period. These sequences of neurons encoded both stimulus identity and elapsed time. The encoding of elapsed time became less precise as the sample stimulus receded into the past. These findings suggest that working memory includes a compressed timeline of what happened when, consistent with long-standing cognitive theories of human memory.
MIT Department
Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1162/JOCN_A_01273
