Parthasarathy et al found that a distractor stimulus caused neural representations in the prefrontal cortex to morph into a different pattern but while still retaining information about the item in memory. This was due to mixed selectivity neurons. By contrast, the FEF had less mixed selectivity and the distractor caused it to lose information. Nice.
Mixed selectivity morphs population codes in prefrontal cortex
Aishwarya Parthasarathy, Roger Herikstad, Jit Hon Bong, Felipe Salvador Medina, Camilo Libedinsky & Shih-Cheng Yen
Nature Neuroscience (2017)
For further reading about mixed selectivity:
Fusi, S., Miller, E.K., and Rigotti, M. (2016) Why neurons mix: High dimensionality for higher cognition. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 37:66-74 doi:10.1016/j.conb.2016.01.010. View PDF »
Rigotti, M., Barak, O., Warden, M.R., Wang, X., Daw, N.D., Miller, E.K., & Fusi, S. (2013) The importance of mixed selectivity in complex cognitive tasks. Nature, 497, 585-590, doi:10.1038/nature12160. View PDF »
About the Author
Miller Lab
The Miller Lab uses experimental and theoretical approaches to study the neural basis of the high-level cognitive functions that underlie complex goal-directed behavior. ekmillerlab.mit.edu