Multiple-electrodes, brain rhythms, and cognition

Field: Neuroscience (Life Sciences)

Event Abstract Back to Event Multiple-electrodes, brain rhythms, and cognition Our laboratory has developed unique technology to record neural activity from many electrodes simultaneously in behaving monkeys. This has revealed new insights into the role of the precise timing of neural activity in cognitive functions, including attention and short-term memory. Attention regulates the flood of sensory information into a manageable stream, and so understanding how it is controlled is central to understanding cognition. Different theories suggest that searching a visual scene involves serial and/or parallel allocation of attention, but there is little direct evidence. We found both behavioral and neural evidence in the frontal eye fields for spontaneous, serial, covert shifts of attention. Attention shifts in FEF spiking activity were correlated with oscillations in the local field potential, suggesting a “clocking” signal. Our results suggest that serial covert shifts of attention during search are directed by the FEF and that neuron population oscillations may regulate the timing of cognitive processing. The ability to hold multiple objects in memory is fundamental to intelligent behavior, but its neural basis remains poorly understood. It has been suggested that multiple items may be held in memory by oscillatory activity across neuronal populations, but yet there is little direct evidence. We found that neuronal information about two objects held in short-term memory is enhanced at different phases of an underlying neuronal population oscillation. We recorded neuronal activity from the prefrontal cortex of monkeys remembering two visual objects over a brief interval. We found that, during this memory interval, there was an oscillation of neuron population activity in the prefrontal cortex. Further, spikes carried most information about the individual memorized objects at different oscillatory phases according to their order of presentation. Optimal encoding of the first object was significantly earlier in the oscillatory cycle than that for the second object. These results suggest that oscillatory neuronal synchronization mediates a phase-dependent coding of memorized objects in prefrontal cortex. Encoding at distinct phases may help to disambiguate information about multiple objects in short-term memory. These results illustrate how synchronized oscillatory brain rhythms may act as “clocking signals” that help regulate cognitive functions. Conference: Computational and systems neuroscience 2009, Salt Lake City, UT, United States, 26 Feb - 3 Mar, 2009. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Oral Presentations Citation: (2009). Multiple-electrodes, brain rhythms, and cognition. Front. Syst. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Computational and systems neuroscience 2009. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.06.2009.03.230 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 03 Feb 2009; Published Online: 03 Feb 2009. Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Google Google Scholar PubMed Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.