title: Cortical and Subcortical Contributions to Short-Term Memory for Orienting Movements.
abstract: Neural activity in frontal cortical areas has been causally linked to short-term memory (STM), but whether this activity is necessary for forming, maintaining, or reading out STM remains unclear. In rats performing a memory-guided orienting task, the frontal orienting fields in cortex (FOF) are considered critical for STM maintenance, and during each trial display a monotonically increasing neural encoding for STM. Here, we transiently inactivated either the FOF or the superior colliculus and found that the resulting impairments in memory-guided orienting performance followed a monotonically decreasing time course, surprisingly opposite to the neural encoding. A dynamical attractor model in which STM relies equally on cortical and subcortical regions reconciled the encoding and inactivation data. We confirmed key predictions of the model, including a time-dependent relationship between trial difficulty and perturbability, and substantial, supralinear, impairment following simultaneous inactivation of the FOF and superior colliculus during memory maintenance.
authors.affiliation: Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
authors.forename: Charles D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Kopec
authors.affiliation: Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute; NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science, New York University Shanghai, Shanghai 200122, China.
authors.forename: Jeffrey C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Erlich
authors.affiliation: Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Department of Biology, Institute for Neuroengineering, eScience Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Bingni W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Brunton
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Department of Bioengineering, Neuroscience Program, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, CNC Program, Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Deisseroth
authors.affiliation: Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Electronic address: brody@princeton.edu.
authors.forename: Carlos D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Brody
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000818:Animals; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D013477:Superior Colliculi / Q000502:physiology*