TY - JOUR
T1 - Complementary roles for primate frontal and parietal cortex in guarding working memory from distractor stimuli
AU - Jacob, Simon Nikolas
AU - Nieder, Andreas
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to S.N.J. (JA 1999/1-1) and A.N. (NI 618/4-1). S.N.J. was supported by the Charité Clinical Scientist Program funded by the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Berlin Institute of Health.
PY - 2014/7/2
Y1 - 2014/7/2
N2 - Prefrontal cortex (PFC) and posterior parietal cortex are important for maintaining behaviorally relevant information in working memory. Here, we challenge the commonly held view that suppression of distractors by PFC neurons is the main mechanism underlying the filtering of task-irrelevant information. We recorded single-unit activity from PFC and the ventral intraparietal area (VIP) of monkeys trained to resist distracting stimuli in a delayed-match-to-numerositytask. Surprisingly, PFC neurons preferentially encoded distractors during their presentation. Shortly after this interference, however, PFC neurons restored target information, which predicted correct behavioral decisions. In contrast, most VIPneurons only encoded target numerosities throughout the trial. Representation of target information in VIP was the earliest and most reliable neuronal correlate of behavior. Our data suggest that distracting stimuli can be bypassed by storing and retrieving target information, emphasizing active maintenance processes during working memory with complementary functions for frontal and parietal cortex in controlling memory content.
AB - Prefrontal cortex (PFC) and posterior parietal cortex are important for maintaining behaviorally relevant information in working memory. Here, we challenge the commonly held view that suppression of distractors by PFC neurons is the main mechanism underlying the filtering of task-irrelevant information. We recorded single-unit activity from PFC and the ventral intraparietal area (VIP) of monkeys trained to resist distracting stimuli in a delayed-match-to-numerositytask. Surprisingly, PFC neurons preferentially encoded distractors during their presentation. Shortly after this interference, however, PFC neurons restored target information, which predicted correct behavioral decisions. In contrast, most VIPneurons only encoded target numerosities throughout the trial. Representation of target information in VIP was the earliest and most reliable neuronal correlate of behavior. Our data suggest that distracting stimuli can be bypassed by storing and retrieving target information, emphasizing active maintenance processes during working memory with complementary functions for frontal and parietal cortex in controlling memory content.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84903584679&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuron.2014.05.009
DO - 10.1016/j.neuron.2014.05.009
M3 - Article
C2 - 24991963
AN - SCOPUS:84903584679
SN - 0896-6273
VL - 83
SP - 226
EP - 237
JO - Neuron
JF - Neuron
IS - 1
ER -