Increases in beta power associated with top-down attention. Beta seemed unite visual cortex. There was a more homogeneous pattern of beta correlation across the cortex during top-down vs bottom-up attention.
Bekisz, M., Bogdan, W., Ghazaryan, A., Waleszczyk, W. J., Kublik, E., & Wróbel, A. (2016). The Primary Visual Cortex Is Differentially Modulated by Stimulus-Driven and Top-Down Attention. PloS one, 11(1), e0145379.
Lunqvist, M., Rose, J., Herman, P, Brincat, S.L, Buschman, T.J., and Miller, E.K. (in press) Gamma and beta bursts underlie memory. Neuron
We know how to party!
The viewpoint that single neurons are the functional units of the brain rests on the hypothesis that each neuron has a single function or “message”. This notion has eroded under observations that cortical neurons do not seem to do one thing. Instead, neurons often respond to diverse combinations of task relevant variables, and often a variety of different variables with no apparent single function. Why would the brain evolve neurons with this “mixed selectivity”? In short, they add computational power. How? Read this paper and we”ll tell you.
Why neurons mix: high dimensionality for higher cognition,
Stefano Fusi, Earl K Miller, Mattia Rigotti,
Current Opinion in Neurobiology, Volume 37, April 2016, Pages 66-74, ISSN 0959-4388, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2016.01.010.
Nice review of our putative neural correlate of one of the most studied cognitive functions: Working memory.
Riley, Mitchell R., and Christos Constantinidis. “Role of Prefrontal Persistent Activity in Working Memory.” Frontiers in systems neuroscience 9 (2015).
Earl Miller is scheduled to discuss the myth of multitasking on NBC’s TODAY show tomorrow morning (1/27/16). Tune in (but only if it is not a distraction).
I like to say that anatomy is the road-and-highway system, activity is the traffic, and oscillations are the traffic lights. So, here you go:
Human brain networks function in connectome-specific harmonic waves.
Selen Atasoy, Isaac Donnelly & Joel Pearson
Nature Communications 7, Article number: 10340 doi:10.1038/ncomms10340
Oscillatory synchrony of prefrontal parvalbumin plays a role in top-down control of attention.
Kim, H., Ährlund-Richter, S., Wang, X., Deisseroth, K., & Carlén, M. (2016). Prefrontal Parvalbumin Neurons in Control of Attention. Cell, 164(1), 208-218.
Pascal Fries and crew add to the mounting evidence that slow vs fast oscillations subserve feedback vs feedforward information flow in the cortex.
Michalareas, G., Vezoli, J., van Pelt, S., Schoffelen, J. M., Kennedy, H., & Fries, P. (2016). Alpha-Beta and Gamma Rhythms Subserve Feedback and Feedforward Influences among Human Visual Cortical Areas. Neuron.
Here’s the link to Neuron’s Best of 2014-2015 Special Issue:
http://info.cell.com/best-of-neuron-2014-2015
And here’s the paper:
Antzoulatos, E.G. and Miller, E.K. (2014) Increases in functional connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and striatum during category learning. Neuron, 83:216-225. View PDF
Well done, Evan!
Bichot et al find that a particular part of the prefrontal cortex is the source of information about an object when we search for it. In other words, when you look for your missing keys, this is the part of the brain that reminds you what they look like.