The Miller Lab @ MIT

  • Synchronized brain waves enable rapid learning

    Miller Lab
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    Antzoulatos EG and Miller EK  (in press) Increases in Functional Connectivity between Prefrontal Cortex and Striatum during Category Learning. Neuron, in press.
    DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2014.05.005

    Animals were trained to learn new category groupings by trial and error.  Once they started to “get” the categories, there was an increase in beta-band synchrony between the prefrontal cortex and striatum, two brain areas critical for learning.  By the time the categories were well-learned, the beta synchrony between the areas became category-specific, that is, unique sets of sites in the prefrontal cortex and striatum showed increased beta synchrony for the two different categories.  This suggests that synchronization of brain rhythms can quickly establish new functional brain circuits and thus support cognitive flexibility, a hallmark of intelligence.

    MIT Press release:
    Synchronized brain waves enable rapid learning
    MIT study finds neurons that hum together encode new information.

  • Neuronal Correlates of Visual Working Memory in the Corvid Endbrain

    Miller Lab
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    A well-known correlate of working memory is sustained neural activity that bridges short gaps in time.  It is well-established in the primate brain, but what about birds?  They have working memory.  (In fact, there is a lot of classic work that detailed the behavioral characteristics of working memory in pigeons).

    Miller Lab alumnus Andreas Nieder and crew trained crows to perform a working memory task and found sustained activity in the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL).  This is presumably a neural correlate of the crow’s visual working memory.

    Now if crows could only pass that causality test.

  • Induced Alpha Rhythms Track the Content and Quality of Visual Working Memory Representations with High Temporal Precision

    Miller Lab

    Anderson et al used scalp EEG recordings to decode the content of working memory and its quality.  Subjects performed a orientation working memory task.  Anderson et al found that the spatial distribution of alpha band power could be used to determine what orientation the subject was remembering and how precisely they were remembering it.  Cool.

  • Different Neuronal Computations of Working Memory Across Visual Hemifields

    Miller Lab

    Matsushima and Tanaka compared neural correlates of spatial working memory for locations within the same hemifield or across hemifields.  When the two remembered locations were in the same hemifield (right or left side of vision), the neural response in the prefrontal cortex was intermediate to the two cues presented alone.  When the cues were across hemifields, the neural response was the same as the preferred cue presented alone.  In other words, remembered locations within a hemifield seemed to be in competition with each other whereas locations across the hemifields seemed to be have no interaction at all.  In yet other words, it was as if the (intact) monkeys had their brains split down the middle. The authors concluded local inhibitory interactions between cues within, but not across, hemifields.

    This confirms Buschman et al (2011) who found that independent capacities for visual working memory in the right and left hemifields.

    Further reading:
    Buschman,T.J., Siegel, M., Roy, J.E. and Miller, E.K. (2011) Neural substrates of cognitive capacity limitations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108(27):11252-5. View PDF »

  • Functions of gamma-band synchronization in cognition

    Miller Lab

    Gamma band oscillations are seen throughout the cortex and subcortex.  Do they have a single or different functions?  Bosman et al review the literature and conclude the latter but nonetheless point out that gamma likely rises from a cortical motif involving interactions between excitatory and inhibitory neurons. So, just as activity of individual neurons means different things in different brain areas so does gamma rhythms.

  • Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience: Special issue honoring Charlie Gross

    Miller Lab

    Volume 26, Issue 6 – June 2014

    Special Issue Honoring Charles G. Gross

    PREFACE

    “Charlie’s Lab”
    Charles G. Gross
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1195–1195.

    RESEARCH ARTICLES

    Facial Expressions and the Evolution of the Speech Rhythm
    Asif A. Ghazanfar, Daniel Y. Takahashi
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1196–1207.

    Effect of Microstimulation of the Superior Colliculus on Visual Space Attention
    Ricardo Gattass, Robert Desimone
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1208–1219.

    Subcortical Projections of Area V2 in the Macaque
    Leslie G. Ungerleider, Thelma W. Galkin, Robert Desimone, Ricardo Gattass
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1220–1233.

    S-cone Visual Stimuli Activate Superior Colliculus Neurons in Old World Monkeys: Implications for Understanding Blindsight
    Nathan Hall, Carol Colby
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1234–1256.

    Interpersonal Competence in Young Adulthood and Right Laterality in White Matter
    Nicola De Pisapia, Mauro Serra, Paola Rigo, Justin Jager, Nico Papinutto, Gianluca Esposito, Paola Venuti, Marc H. Bornstein
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1257–1265.

    Reorganization of Retinotopic Maps after Occipital Lobe Infarction
    Lucia M. Vaina, Sergei Soloviev, Finnegan J. Calabro, Ferdinando Buonanno, Richard Passingham, Alan Cowey
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1266–1282.

    PFC Neurons Reflect Categorical Decisions about Ambiguous Stimuli
    Jefferson E. Roy, Timothy J. Buschman, Earl K. Miller
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1283–1291.

    Persistent Spatial Information in the FEF during Object-based Short-term Memory Does Not Contribute to Task Performance
    Kelsey L. Clark, Behrad Noudoost, Tirin Moore
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1292–1299.

    ESSAYS

    Speculations on the Evolution of Awareness
    Michael S. A. Graziano
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1300–1304.

    Travels with Charlie
    Thomas D. Albright
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1305–1323.

    “It Is Hardly News that Women Are Oppressed”: Sexism, Activism, and Charlie
    Rhoda K. Unger
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1324–1326.

    POEMS

    A Charliad
    Michael E. Goldberg
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1327–1327.

    Travels with Charlie: Part II
    Suzanne Corkin
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience June 2014, Vol. 26, No. 6: 1328–1329.

  • Executive control processes underlying multi-item working memory

    Miller Lab

    Does the prefrontal cortex (PFC) maintain the contents of working memory or does it direct the focus of attention?  Lara and Wallis asked this question by training monkeys to perform a multi-color change detection task.  Few PFC neurons encoded the color of the stimuli. Instead, the dominant signals were the spatial location of the item and the location of focal attention. This suggests that the PFC is more involved in directing attention than retaining information in working memory.  Supporting this was increased power in alpha and theta power in the PFC, frequency bands associated with long-range neural communication.

  • Different Neuronal Computations of Spatial Working Memory for Multiple Locations within versus across Visual Hemifields

    Miller Lab

    Matsushima and Tanaka examined the neural correlates of spatial working memory for one vs two locations.  When the two locations were in the same (right or left) hemifield, the level neural activity was intermediate between that elicited from either cue alone.  By contrast, when the cues were presented in opposite hemifields, neural activity to each cue was as if the cue was presented alone.  This lends support to other observations (e.g., Buschman et al 2011) that there are independent capacities for working memory in the right and left visual hemifields, as if the brain was split down the middle.

    Further reading:
    Buschman,T.J., Siegel, M., Roy, J.E. and Miller, E.K. (2011) Neural substrates of cognitive capacity limitations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108(27):11252-5. View PDF »

  • Videos: Rhythmic Dynamics and Cognition 6-4-13

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    See lectures from the Cognitive Rhythms Collaborative conference on Rhythmic Dynamics and Cognition, which took place on June 4, 2013 at MIT.

    Talks:
    Elizabeth Buffalo: Neural Signals for Memory and Space in the Primate Medial Temporal Lobe
    Earl K. Miller: Cognition is Rhythmic
    Robert Knight: Oscillations and Human PFC
    Peter Ulhaas: Neural Oscillations in Schizophrenia: Perspectives from MEG
    Charles Schroeder: Neural Substrates of Temporal Prediction in Active Sensing
    Peter Brown: Beta Oscillations in the Human Basal Ganglia
    Christa van Dort: Optogenetic Activation of Cholinergic Neurons in the PPT Induces REM Sleep
    Rosalyn Doran: Dynamic Causal Modeling and Neurophysiology
    Liam Paninski: Statistical Neuroscience
    Astrid Prinz: How do rhythmically active circuits “analyze” their own activity?

  • Mini-Symposium: Frontiers in Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation – 4/16/14 in Boston

    Miller Lab

    Cognitive Rhythms Collaborative and Center for
    Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology

    Spring 2014 Mini-Symposium
    Frontiers in Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation

    Wednesday, April 16, 2014 at 1 pm

    Boston University Photonics Center 206
    8 Saint Mary Street
    Boston, MA 02215

    1:00 – 1:15  Registration

    1:15 – 2:00  Dr. Lucas Parra, City College of New York
    “Transcranial electrical stimulation: mechanisms and targeting”

    2:00 – 2:45 Dr. Tommi Raij, Massachusetts General Hospital
    “Transcranial magnetic stimulation: mechanisms and navigation”

    2:45 – 3:00  Break

    3:00 – 3:45  Dr. Noah Philip, Alpert Medical School of Brown University
    “Clinical implications of frequency dependent neuromodulation”

    3:45 – 4:30  Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Harvard Medical School
    “Characterizing and guiding brain networks with noninvasive brain stimulation”

    4:30    Discussion / Reception

    Registration free, but required. Email xiaoshi@bu.edu.