The Distributed Nature of Working Memory

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Thomas B. Christophel¹ ; ² ; ³ ; ¹² ; ^{tbchristophel@gmail.com} ; P. Christiaan Klink⁴ ; ⁵ ; ⁶ ; ¹² ; Bernhard Spitzer⁷ ; Pieter R. Roelfsema⁵ ; ⁶ ; ⁸ ; ¹² ; John-Dylan Haynes¹ ; ² ; ³ ; ⁹ ; ¹⁰ ; ¹¹ ; ¹²
• 刊名：Trends in Cognitive Sciences
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：21
• 期：2
• 页码：111-124
• 全文大小：2723 K
• 卷排序：21

文摘

Studies in humans and non-human primates have provided evidence for storage of working memory contents in multiple regions ranging from sensory to parietal and prefrontal cortex. We discuss potential explanations for these distributed representations: (i) features in sensory regions versus prefrontal cortex differ in the level of abstractness and generalizability; and (ii) features in prefrontal cortex reflect representations that are transformed for guidance of upcoming behavioral actions. We propose that the propensity to produce persistent activity is a general feature of cortical networks. Future studies may have to shift focus from asking where working memory can be observed in the brain to how a range of specialized brain areas together transform sensory information into a delayed behavioral response.