Persistent neuronal firing in the medial temporal lobe supports performance and workload of visual working memory in humans

Boran, Ece; Hilfiker, Peter; Stieglitz, Lennart; Sarnthein, Johannes; Klaver, Peter

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119123

Cited by 17 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Empirically, our results have resolved an issue concerning the decodability of item-specific WM content in the MTL for simple stimulus features. Previously, MTL activity has been shown to scale with WM set size of letters and color squares without decodable item-specific WM content 21,23 . One conceptual uncertainty is whether the MTL primarily responds to task difficulty or retains item-level information in WM.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, this classic view is not free of controversy. A growing body of research has suggested that the MTL is involved in tasks that rely on information maintained in WM [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, it is unclear what computation process of the MTL is involved in WM 29 . Furthermore, the MTL tends to engage more in a WM task when long-term memory becomes relevant, for example when task loads are higher 17,21,23 or when task stimuli are complex 15,19,20,24,30,31 . As a result, contributions from the MTL to WM are often deemed secondary 8,29 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Entorhinal-DG/CA3 Pathway in the Medial Temporal Lobe Retains Visual Working Memory of a Simple Surface Feature

Cappiello

Yassa

Ester

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Classic models consider working memory (WM) and long-term memory as distinct mental faculties that are supported by different neural mechanisms. Yet, there are significant parallels in the computation that both types of memory require. For instance, the representation of precise item-specific memory requires the separation of overlapping neural representations of similar information. This computation has been referred to as pattern separation, which can be mediated by the entorhinal-DG/CA3 pathway of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) in service of long-term episodic memory. However, although recent evidence has suggested that the MTL is involved in WM, the extent to which the entorhinal-DG/CA3 pathway supports precise item-specific WM has remained elusive. Here, we combine an established orientation WM task with high-resolution fMRI to test the hypothesis that the entorhinal-DG/CA3 pathway retains visual WM of a simple surface feature. Participants were retrospectively cued to retain one of the two studied orientation gratings during a brief delay period and then tried to reproduce the cued orientation as precisely as possible. By modeling the delay-period activity to reconstruct the retained WM content, we found that the anterior-lateral entorhinal cortex (aLEC) and the hippocampal DG/CA3 subfield both contain item-specific WM information that is associated with subsequent recall fidelity. Together, these results highlight the contribution of MTL circuitry to item-specific WM representation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Entorhinal-DG/CA3 Pathway in the Medial Temporal Lobe Retains Visual Working Memory of a Simple Surface Feature

Cappiello

Yassa

Ester

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted September 10, 2022. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.09.08.507081 doi: bioRxiv preprint 4 / 32 maintenance of EC neurons in rats (9), monkeys (10) and human subjects (11).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The entorhinal cortex (EC) is a key candidate for such an area for the following reasons. First, studies consistently reported persistent spiking during WM maintenance of EC neurons in rats (9), monkeys (10) and human subjects (11). Second, the EC serves as an interface between the hippocampus and cortical and subcortical areas (12).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Successful working memory linked to theta connectivity patterns in the hippocampal-entorhinal circuit

Cao

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

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Working memory (WM) is the ability to actively maintain information for a short time and is central to human behavior. Rodent studies have proposed that hippocampal-entorhinal communication supports WM maintenance. However, the exact neural mechanisms of this interaction in WM remains unclear in humans. To address these questions, we combined machine learning analyses with intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) recordings from the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex (EC) in human participants, who maintained a set of letters in their WM. We found that WM maintenance was accompanied by elevated bidirectional hippocampal-EC information exchange via the theta band (2–8 Hz) and bidirectional cross-region theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling (PAC). Further decoding analyses showed that the unidirectional inter-regional communication, with both theta oscillations in the hippocampus modulating EC gamma activity and theta band-coordinated information flow from the hippocampus, could decode correct performance at the level of participants. Taken together, our results demonstrate that theta functional coupling in the hippocampal-EC supports the maintenance of WM information via a specific pattern of frequency and direction. This connectivity-based coding could shed light on the neural mechanisms of WM processing.

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Short-term and working memory

Tardiff,

Curtis

2024

Reference Module in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Psychology

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Persistent neuronal firing in the medial temporal lobe supports performance and workload of visual working memory in humans

Cited by 17 publications

References 66 publications

The Entorhinal-DG/CA3 Pathway in the Medial Temporal Lobe Retains Visual Working Memory of a Simple Surface Feature

The Entorhinal-DG/CA3 Pathway in the Medial Temporal Lobe Retains Visual Working Memory of a Simple Surface Feature

Successful working memory linked to theta connectivity patterns in the hippocampal-entorhinal circuit

Short-term and working memory

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