This study shows the role of alpha and beta oscillations in the prefrontal cortex and frontal eye fields in a classic test of cognitive control: anti-saccades. It also shows how these oscillatory patterns develop with adulthood.
Hwang, Kai, et al. “Frontal preparatory neural oscillations associated with cognitive control: A developmental study comparing young adults and adolescents.” NeuroImage (2016).
Miller Lab Alumnus Andreas Nieder tells you everything you need to know about the brain substrates of the sense of number:
Nieder, Andreas. “The neuronal code for number.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2016).
Nice review of past work on the neurobiology of working memory and capacity limits:
Constantinidis, Christos, and Torkel Klingberg. “The neuroscience of working memory capacity and training.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2016).
Although there is a caveat: More recent work suggests that the substrate of working memory is *not* sustained spiking activity. That is an artifact of cross-trial averaging. “Delay activity” is more sparse and bursty on single trials. This suggests a different memory substrate.
See:
Lunqvist, M., Rose, J., Herman, P, Brincat, S.L, Buschman, T.J., and Miller, E.K. (2016) Gamma and beta bursts underlie working memory. Neuron, published online March 17, 2016. View PDF
Stokes, Mark G. “‘Activity-silent’working memory in prefrontal cortex: a dynamic coding framework.” Trends in cognitive sciences 19.7 (2015): 394-405.
Stokes and Spaak review our recent work on single-trial analysis of working memory “delay” activity. This showed that the classic profile of sustained activity as the memory substrate is an artifact of averaging across trials. The assumption is that averaging cancels out noise. Instead, it may be covering up important details of the dynamics of neural activity.
Read more here:
The Importance of Single-Trial Analyses in Cognitive Neuroscience
Mark Stokes and Eelke Spaak
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.05.008
The original paper:
Lunqvist, M., Rose, J., Herman, P, Brincat, S.L, Buschman, T.J., and Miller, E.K. (2016) Gamma and beta bursts underlie working memory. Neuron, published online March 17, 2016. View PDF »
Nice paper showing that different task demands in different task stages engage different oscillatory bands in the prefrontal cortex.
Wimmer, Klaus, et al. “Transitions between Multiband Oscillatory Patterns Characterize Memory-Guided Perceptual Decisions in Prefrontal Circuits.”The Journal of Neuroscience 36.2 (2016): 489-505.
Earl Miller receives the Kent State University Professional Achievement Award from KSU President Beverly Warren.
And delivers the Commencement Address:
Free access to our new paper:
Lundqvist, M., Rose, J., Herman, P., Brincat, S. L., Buschman, T. J., & Miller, E. K. (2016). Gamma and Beta Bursts Underlie Working Memory. Neuron.
Valid until May 26, 2016
Tsutsui et al shows how the prefrontal cortex integrates rule and category information for a behavioral decision.
Tsutsui, Ken-Ichiro, et al. “Representation of Functional Category in the Monkey Prefrontal Cortex and Its Rule-Dependent Use for Behavioral Selection.” The Journal of Neuroscience 36.10 (2016): 3038-3048.
Michael Halassa, Guoping Feng, and colleagues show that a genetic deficit found in patients with ADHD produces (in mice) deficit in the thalamic reticular nucleus. This adds to Halassa’s recent work (also in Nature) suggesting that attention is focused when the prefrontal cortex acts on sensory cortex via the thalamus. It adds a link to potential path to treatment. Cool.
Thalamic reticular impairment underlies attention deficit in Ptchd1Y/− mice
Michael F. Wells, Ralf D. Wimmer, L. Ian Schmitt, Guoping Feng & Michael M. Halassa
Sustained activity has long been thought to be the neural substrate of working memory. But the evidence is based on averaging neural activity across trials. A closer examination reveals that something more complex is happening and supports a very different model of working memory.
Gamma and Beta Bursts Underlie Working Memory
Mikael Lundqvist, Jonas Rose, Pawel Herman, Scott L. Brincat, Timothy J. Buschman, Earl K. Miller
Neuron, published online March 17, 2016
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.02.028
Summary
Working memory is thought to result from sustained neuron spiking. However, computational models suggest complex dynamics with discrete oscillatory bursts. We analyzed local field potential (LFP) and spiking from the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of monkeys performing a working memory task. There were brief bursts of narrow-band gamma oscillations (45–100 Hz), varied in time and frequency, accompanying encoding and re-activation of sensory information. They appeared at a minority of recording sites associated with spiking reflecting the to-be-remembered items. Beta oscillations (20–35 Hz) also occurred in brief, variable bursts but reflected a default state interrupted by encoding and decoding. Only activity of neurons reflecting encoding/decoding correlated with changes in gamma burst rate. Thus, gamma bursts could gate access to, and prevent sensory interference with, working memory. This supports the hypothesis that working memory is manifested by discrete oscillatory dynamics and spiking, not sustained activity.