IFLScience: Brain Waves Synchronize for Faster Learning
Summary:
As our thoughts dart from this to that, our brains absorb and analyze new information at a rapid pace. According to a new study, these quickly changing brain states may be encoded by the synchronization of brain waves across different brain regions. Waves originating from two areas involved in learning couple to form new communication circuits when monkeys learn to categorize different patterns of dots.
A (very brief) mention of the new paper by Antzoulatos and Miller (2014) on National Public Radio.
The paper:
Antzoulatos, E.G. and Miller, E.K. (in press) “Increases in functional connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and striatum during category learning.” Neuron. View PDF
Huffington Post article about the evils of multitasking.
You’re Not Busy, You Just Think You Are: 7 Ways To Find More Time The Huffington Post UK | By Georgia James Posted: 13/06/2014 15:00 BST
(with quotes from Earl Miller)
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.
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.
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.
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 »
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.
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.
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.