Compressed Timeline of Recent Experience in Monkey Lateral Prefrontal Cortex

© 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 focuse...

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Main Authors: Tiganj, Zoran, Cromer, Jason A, Roy, Jefferson E, Miller, Earl K, Howard, Marc W
Other Authors: Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MIT Press - Journals 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135023
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author Tiganj, Zoran
Cromer, Jason A
Roy, Jefferson E
Miller, Earl K
Howard, Marc W
author2 Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
author_facet Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
Tiganj, Zoran
Cromer, Jason A
Roy, Jefferson E
Miller, Earl K
Howard, Marc W
author_sort Tiganj, Zoran
collection MIT
description © 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.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1350232023-09-15T19:32:28Z Compressed Timeline of Recent Experience in Monkey Lateral Prefrontal Cortex Tiganj, Zoran Cromer, Jason A Roy, Jefferson E Miller, Earl K Howard, Marc W Picower Institute for Learning and Memory Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences © 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. 2021-10-27T20:10:22Z 2021-10-27T20:10:22Z 2018 2019-10-03T13:58:26Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135023 en 10.1162/JOCN_A_01273 Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 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. application/pdf MIT Press - Journals MIT Press
spellingShingle Tiganj, Zoran
Cromer, Jason A
Roy, Jefferson E
Miller, Earl K
Howard, Marc W
Compressed Timeline of Recent Experience in Monkey Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
title Compressed Timeline of Recent Experience in Monkey Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
title_full Compressed Timeline of Recent Experience in Monkey Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
title_fullStr Compressed Timeline of Recent Experience in Monkey Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
title_full_unstemmed Compressed Timeline of Recent Experience in Monkey Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
title_short Compressed Timeline of Recent Experience in Monkey Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
title_sort compressed timeline of recent experience in monkey lateral prefrontal cortex
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135023
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