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Working memory

Keeping short-term memories alive

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 18, page 324 (2017)Cite this article

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If a response to a stimulus has to be delayed during a task, neural activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is thought to maintain task-relevant information as a short-term memory. However, the circuit basis of this so-called delay activity is not clear. In a new study in mice, Kamigaki and Dan shed light on the contributions of different cell types in the dorsomedial PFC (dmPFC) to such activity.

Calcium imaging of dmPFC pyramidal neurons during this task revealed that some neurons were more active during the delay in go trials, whereas other neurons were more active during the delay on no-go trials. During the first 2 seconds of the delay period, optogenetic activation of somatostatin-expressing (SST+) interneurons and parvalbumin-expressing (PV+) interneurons, which inhibit cortical pyramidal cells, decreased task performance, mainly by increasing the rate of false alarms. Together, these data suggest that PFC pyramidal cells maintain action plan information during the delay and are particularly important for suppressing false alarms.

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References

  1. Kamigaki, T. & Dan, Y. Delay activity of specific prefrontal interneuron subtypes modulates memory-guided behavior. Nat. Neurosci. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nn.4554, (2017)

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Authors
  1. Natasha Bray
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Cite this article

Bray, N. Keeping short-term memories alive. Nat Rev Neurosci 18, 324 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.60

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.60

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