Poster No:
863
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Yuan Gao1, Xin Hu1, Ke Jia1
Institutions:
1Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Xin Hu
Zhejiang University
Hangzhou, China
Ke Jia
Zhejiang University
Hangzhou, China
Introduction:
The functional role of the prefrontal cortex in visual working memory (WM) has been a subject of substantial debate. Non-human primate studies have emphasized the importance of persistent activity driven by recurrent processes (in layer Ⅲ) for maintaining stimulus-specific WM representation, whereas human neuroimaging studies suggest that the prefrontal cortex served as a control region to regulate WM content represented in sensory cortices. Here, we leveraged ultra-high-field (7T) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate whether persistent activity in the human prefrontal cortex at mesoscopic scales was involved in stimulus-specific WM representation.
Methods:
The experiment consisted of a behavioral session and an fMRI session on separate days. In both sessions, participants performed a delayed match-to-sample task, in which a sample dot and a test dot (radius: 0.15°) were sequentially presented at one of the six locations for 0.5 seconds, separated by a delay of up to 12.7 seconds. Participants (N = 16, eight females) were asked to judge whether the location of the test dot was tilted clockwise or counter-clockwise relative to the sample dot.
Results:
During the delay period, we observed decodable WM representation specifically in the superficial layer of the superior precentral sulcus (sPCS), consistent with the role of recurrent processes in layer Ⅲ in non-human primates. The decoding accuracy increased with stronger persistent activity, indicating the dependence of stimulus-specific WM representation on the persistent activity. Cross-generalization analysis revealed resembled representations between the encoding and maintenance periods. Furthermore, we conducted a selectivity analysis to demonstrate that the strength of decoding was contributed by the location preferences of single voxels within the superficial layers. Lastly, we found a strong negative correlation between the discrimination threshold and the WM reconstruction fidelity, indicating that the quality of neural representation in superficial sPCS is closely associated with participants' memory performance.
Conclusions:
Our findings of stimulus-specific mnemonic representations within the superficial prefrontal layers bridge the gap between non-human primates and human-based findings, indicating the crucial role of recurrent processes in superficial sPCS layers in WM representation.
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Higher Cognitive Functions Other
Learning and Memory:
Working Memory 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Multivariate Approaches
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Perception: Visual 2
Keywords:
Cortical Layers
FUNCTIONAL MRI
HIGH FIELD MR
Other - Working memory
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Please indicate below if your study was a "resting state" or "task-activation” study.
Task-activation
Healthy subjects only or patients (note that patient studies may also involve healthy subjects):
Healthy subjects
Was this research conducted in the United States?
No
Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel?
NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
Yes
Were any animal research approved by the relevant IACUC or other animal research panel?
NOTE: Any animal studies without IACUC approval will be automatically rejected.
Not applicable
Please indicate which methods were used in your research:
Functional MRI
Behavior
For human MRI, what field strength scanner do you use?
7T
Which processing packages did you use for your study?
Brain Voyager
Free Surfer
Provide references using APA citation style.
Barbosa, J., Stein, H., Martinez, R. L., Galan-Gadea, A., Li, S., Dalmau, J., Adam, K. C. S., Valls-Solé, J., Constantinidis, C., & Compte, A. (2020). Interplay between persistent activity and activity-silent dynamics in the prefrontal cortex underlies serial biases in working memory. Nature Neuroscience, 23(8), 1016–1024.
Constantinidis, C., Franowicz, M. N., & Goldman-Rakic, P. S. (2001). The sensory nature of mnemonic representation in the primate prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 4(3), 311–316.
Curtis, C. E., & D’Esposito, M. (2003). Persistent activity in the prefrontal cortex during working memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(9), 415–423.
Ester, E. F., Sprague, T. C., & Serences, J. T. (2015). Parietal and Frontal Cortex Encode Stimulus-Specific Mnemonic Representations during Visual Working Memory. Neuron, 87(4), 893–905.
Funahashi, S., Bruce, C. J., & Goldman-Rakic, P. S. (1989). Mnemonic coding of visual space in the monkey’s dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology, 61(2), 331–349.
Kok, P., Bains, L. J., Mourik, T. Van, Norris, D. G., Lange, F. P. De, Kok, P., Bains, L. J., Mourik, T. Van, Norris, D. G., & Lange, F. P. De. (2016). Selective Activation of the Deep Layers of the Human Primary Visual Cortex by Top-Down Feedback.
Riggall, A. C., & Postle, B. R. (2012). The relationship between working memory storage and elevated activity as measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(38), 12990–12998.
Stokes, M. G., Kusunoki, M., Sigala, N., Nili, H., Gaffan, D., & Duncan, J. (2013). Dynamic coding for cognitive control in prefrontal cortex. Neuron, 78(2), 364–375.
No