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Persistently active neurons in human medial frontal and medial temporal lobe support working memory
Open accessAbstract
Persistent neural activity is a putative mechanism for the maintenance of working memories. Persistent activity relies on the activity of a distributed network of areas, but the differential contribution of each area remains unclear. We recorded single neurons in the human medial frontal cortex and medial temporal lobe while subjects held up to three items in memory. We found persistently active neurons in both areas. Persistent activity of hippocampal and amygdala neurons was stimulus-specific, formed stable attractors and was predictive of memory content. Medial frontal cortex persistent activity, on the other hand, was modulated by memory load and task set but was not stimulus-specific. Trial-by-trial variability in persistent activity in both areas was related to memory strength, because it predicted the speed and accuracy by which stimuli were remembered. This work reveals, in humans, direct evidence for a distributed network of persistently active neurons supporting working memory maintenance.
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“A central finding is that concept cells fire when concepts are held in working memory (Kamiński et al., 2017; Kornblith et al., 2017) and become active when these concepts are retrieved from long-term memory (Gelbard-Sagiv et al., 2008).”
From Conscious Processing and the Global Neuronal Workspace Hypothesis (2020) · cites this paper as Kamiński et al., 2017
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Metadata
- Authors
- Kamiński, J., Sullivan, S., Chung, J. M., Ross, I. B., Mamelak, A. N., & Rutishauser, U.
- Affiliations
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (US)
- Huntington Hospital (US)
- Corresponding author
- Rutishauser, Ueli
- Venue
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2017-02-20
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 590-601
- ISSN
- 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1726
- PMC
- PMC5374017
- OpenAlex
- W2590265405
- Cited by
- 264
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 13
- FWCI
- 12.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- erratum (2017-08-01)
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH110831, P50MH094258)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- working memory, persistent activity, medial frontal cortex, medial temporal lobe, hippocampus, amygdala, attractor dynamics, memory maintenance, memory load, memory strength, single-unit recording, distributed neural networks
- MeSH terms
- Amygdala, Frontal Lobe, Gyrus Cinguli, Hippocampus, Humans, Memory, Short-Term, Motor Cortex, Neurons, Photic Stimulation, Temporal Lobe
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