Revisiting the role of persistent neural activity during working memory. Sreenivasan, K. K., Curtis, C. E., & D'Esposito, M. Trends Cogn Sci, 18(2):82–89, 2014.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
What are the neural mechanisms underlying working memory (WM)? One influential theory posits that neurons in the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) store WM information via persistent activity. In this review, we critically evaluate recent findings that together indicate that this model of WM needs revision. We argue that sensory cortex, not the lPFC, maintains high-fidelity representations of WM content. By contrast, the lPFC simultaneously maintains representations of multiple goal-related variables that serve to bias stimulus-specific activity in sensory regions. This work highlights multiple neural mechanisms supporting WM, including temporally dynamic population coding in addition to persistent activity. These new insights focus the question on understanding how the mechanisms that underlie WM are related, interact, and are coordinated in the lPFC and sensory cortex.
@Article{Sreenivasan2014a,
  author      = {Sreenivasan, Kartik K. and Curtis, Clayton E. and D'Esposito, Mark},
  journal     = {Trends Cogn Sci},
  title       = {Revisiting the role of persistent neural activity during working memory.},
  year        = {2014},
  number      = {2},
  pages       = {82--89},
  volume      = {18},
  abstract    = {What are the neural mechanisms underlying working memory (WM)? One
	influential theory posits that neurons in the lateral prefrontal
	cortex (lPFC) store WM information via persistent activity. In this
	review, we critically evaluate recent findings that together indicate
	that this model of WM needs revision. We argue that sensory cortex,
	not the lPFC, maintains high-fidelity representations of WM content.
	By contrast, the lPFC simultaneously maintains representations of
	multiple goal-related variables that serve to bias stimulus-specific
	activity in sensory regions. This work highlights multiple neural
	mechanisms supporting WM, including temporally dynamic population
	coding in addition to persistent activity. These new insights focus
	the question on understanding how the mechanisms that underlie WM
	are related, interact, and are coordinated in the lPFC and sensory
	cortex.},
  doi         = {10.1016/j.tics.2013.12.001},
  file        = {:/Users/endress/applications/2014/grants/wm/former-part1/mri/papers/neuroimaging WM/Revisiting the role of persistent neural activity during working memory.pdf:PDF},
  groups      = {LTM vs. WM},
  institution = {Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, and Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, 132 Barker Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.},
  keywords    = {Animals; Cerebral Cortex, physiology; Humans; Memory, Short-Term, physiology; Neurons, physiology; Prefrontal Cortex, physiology},
  language    = {eng},
  medline-pst = {ppublish},
  pmid        = {24439529},
  timestamp   = {2015.09.01},
}

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