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Discrete attractor dynamics underlies persistent activity in the frontal cortex
- Source :
- Nature. 566:212-217
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2019.
-
Abstract
- Short-term memories link events separated in time, such as past sensation and future actions. Short-term memories are correlated with slow neural dynamics, including selective persistent activity, which can be maintained over seconds. In a delayed response task that requires short-term memory, neurons in the mouse anterior lateral motor cortex (ALM) show persistent activity that instructs future actions. To determine the principles that underlie this persistent activity, here we combined intracellular and extracellular electrophysiology with optogenetic perturbations and network modelling. We show that during the delay epoch, the activity of ALM neurons moved towards discrete end points that correspond to specific movement directions. These end points were robust to transient shifts in ALM activity caused by optogenetic perturbations. Perturbations occasionally switched the population dynamics to the other end point, followed by incorrect actions. Our results show that discrete attractor dynamics underlie short-term memory related to motor planning.
- Subjects :
- Male
0301 basic medicine
Frontal cortex
Computer science
Movement
Models, Neurological
Population
Optogenetics
Membrane Potentials
Mice
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Attractor
Sensation
medicine
Animals
education
Neurons
education.field_of_study
Multidisciplinary
Dynamics (mechanics)
Motor Cortex
Electrophysiology
Memory, Short-Term
030104 developmental biology
medicine.anatomical_structure
Neuroscience
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Motor cortex
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14764687 and 00280836
- Volume :
- 566
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e90434ee6c674ed1472f348353226794