Authors
Eelke Spaak, Kei Watanabe, Shintaro Funahashi, Mark Stokes
Publication date
2017
Journal
The Journal of Neuroscience
Description
Working memory (WM) provides the stability necessary for high-level cognition. Influential theories typically assume that WM depends on the persistence of stable neural representations, yet increasing evidence suggests that neural states are highly dynamic. Here we apply multivariate pattern analysis to explore the population dynamics in primate lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) during three variants of the classic memory-guided saccade task (recorded in four animals). We observed the hallmark of dynamic population coding across key phases of a working memory task: sensory processing, memory encoding, and response execution. Throughout both these dynamic epochs and the memory delay period, however, the neural representational geometry remained stable. We identified two characteristics that jointly explain these dynamics: (1) time-varying changes in the subpopulation of neurons coding for task …
Total citations
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Scholar articles
E Spaak, K Watanabe, S Funahashi, MG Stokes - Journal of neuroscience, 2017