Dissociation of LFP power and tuning in the frontal cortex during memory

Charles D. Holmes, Charalampos Papadimitriou, Lawrence H. Snyder

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Working memory, the ability to maintain and manipulate information in the brain, is critical for cognition. During the memory period of spatial memory tasks, neurons in the prefrontal cortex code for memorized locations via persistent, spatially tuned increases in activity. Local field potentials (LFPs) are understood to reflect summed synaptic activity of local neuron populations and may offer a window into network-level processing. We recorded LFPs from areas 8A and 9/46 while two male cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis) performed a long duration (5.1–15.6 s) memory-guided saccade task. Greater than ~16 Hz, LFP power was contralaterally tuned throughout the memory period. Yet power for both contralateral and ipsilateral targets fell gradually after the first second of the memory period, dropping below baseline after a few seconds. Our results dissociate absolute LFP power from mnemonic tuning and are consistent with modeling work that suggests that decreasing synchronization within a network may improve the stability of memory coding.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8177-8186
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Neuroscience
Volume38
Issue number38
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 19 2018

Keywords

  • Frontal eye fields
  • Local field potential
  • Macaque
  • Prefrontal cortex
  • Working memory

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