Abstract
Working memory is a critical brain function for maintaining and manipulating information over delay periods of seconds. It is debated whether delay-period neural activity in sensory regions is important for the active maintenance of information during the delay period. Here, we tackle this question by examining the anterior piriform cortex (APC), an olfactory sensory cortex, in head-fixed mice performing several olfactory working memory tasks. Active information maintenance is necessary in these tasks, especially in a dual-task paradigm in which mice are required to perform another distracting task while actively maintaining information during the delay period. Optogenetic suppression of neuronal activity in APC during the delay period impaired performance in all the tasks. Furthermore, electrophysiological recordings revealed that APC neuronal populations encoded odor information in the delay period even with an intervening distracting task. Thus, delay activity in APC is important for active information maintenance in olfactory working memory.
Highlights
Working memory (WM) is a function of the brain that supports the active maintenance and manipulation of information over a delay period of several seconds (Baddeley, 2012)
We have shown that the delay-period activity of the medial prefrontal cortex of mice is only important during the learning but not the well-trained phase in an olfactory WM task (Liu et al, 2014)
Our work demonstrates that the anterior piriform cortex (APC) is important for active maintenance in olfactory working memory
Summary
Working memory (WM) is a function of the brain that supports the active maintenance and manipulation of information over a delay period of several seconds (Baddeley, 2012). We have shown that the delay-period activity of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of mice is only important during the learning but not the well-trained phase in an olfactory WM task (Liu et al, 2014). In a task with distractors during the delay, the neuronal activity of sensory regions should be able to maintain information even following a distractor. To engage active WM maintenance, we trained mice to perform several WM tasks, including a dual-task paradigm In this task, we inserted a distracting task into the delay period of an ongoing WM task. The neural correlates of dual-task interference have been reported in the neuronal activity of monkey prefrontal cortex (Watanabe and Funahashi, 2014) and in results from human functional imaging (D’Esposito et al, 1995). (h–j) Correct rates in the DNMS task following delay-period optogenetic suppression in APC.
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