The causal role of auditory cortex in auditory working memory

Abstract

Working memory (WM), the ability to actively hold information in memory over a delay period of seconds, is a fundamental constituent of cognition. Delay-period activity in sensory cortices has been observed in WM tasks, but whether and when the activity plays a functional role for memory maintenance remains unclear. Here we investigated the causal role of auditory cortex (AC) for memory maintenance in mice performing an auditory WM task. Electrophysiological recordings revealed that AC neurons were active not only during the presentation of the auditory stimulus but also early in the delay period. Furthermore, optogenetic suppression of neural activity in AC during the stimulus epoch and early delay period impaired WM performance, whereas suppression later in the delay period did not. Thus, AC is essential for information encoding and maintenance in auditory WM task, especially during the early delay period.

What can we learn from inactivation studies? Lessons from auditory cortex

“…Neural correlates of working memory have been observed in auditory cortex [ 56 ] and recently optogenetic silencing of auditory cortex in mice revealed a role for AC in an auditory working memory task [ 57 ]. In this case, experimenters exploited the temporal resolution of optogenetics and showed that AC activity was shown to be critical for performance in a delayed match to sample task during the presentation of the sound, and also in the early, but not late, delay period [ 57 ].…”

Capturing early human memory consolidation utilizing the higher functional specificity of 7T compared to 3T-fMRI

“…We propose that these modulations represent a functional correlate to the offline replay of neuronal firing sequences, detected by using invasive electrophysiology, e.g. for the mouse auditory cortex after an auditory task 23 or the human motor cortex after a motor task 24 . The concept of detecting neuronal replay by fMRI was very recently shown by Wittkuhn et al 33 in the human visual cortex using task-related stimuli with various inter-stimulus intervals.…”

“…Through the use of invasive electrophysiological methods, the existence of ongoing neuronal firing immediately after a motor task has been demonstrated in animals 19,22,23 . This so-called 5 neuronal "offline replay" is presumed to be directly linked to memory encoding, as suppression of the offline replay results in poorer memory performance 23 . Recently, learning-related offline replay in the human brain was reported in a pilot trial in which participants were implanted with intracortical microelectrode arrays 24 , providing proof of principle that early memory encoding in the resting-state can be detected.…”

“…Through the use of invasive electrophysiological methods, the existence of ongoing neuronal firing immediately after a motor task has been demonstrated in animals 19,22,23 . This so-called 5 neuronal "offline replay" is presumed to be directly linked to memory encoding, as suppression of the offline replay results in poorer memory performance 23 .…”

Hippocampal Transcriptome-Wide Association Study Reveals Correlations Between Impaired Glutamatergic Synapse Pathway and Age-Related Hearing Loss in BXD-Recombinant Inbred Mice

“…To illustrate the potential mechanism, studies have been conducted to reveal the association between hearing loss and central nervous system function, such as the frontal cortex and hippocampus ( Yu et al, 2021 ). The hippocampus is the major brain region that regulates learning and memory; it is also involved in auditory working memory such as encoding and signal maintenance.…”