Sharp emergence of feature-selective sustained activity along the dorsal visual pathway.

Authors

Diego Mendoza-Halliday, Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Department of Physiology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Santiago Torres, Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Department of Physiology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Julio C Martinez-Trujillo, Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Department of Physiology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-2014

Journal

Nature neuroscience

Volume

17

Issue

9

First Page

1255

Last Page

1262

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.1038/nn.3785

Abstract

Sustained activity encoding visual working memory representations has been observed in several cortical areas of primates. Where along the visual pathways this activity emerges remains unknown. Here we show in macaques that sustained spiking activity encoding memorized visual motion directions is absent in direction-selective neurons in early visual area middle temporal (MT). However, it is robustly present immediately downstream, in multimodal association area medial superior temporal (MST), as well as and in the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC). This sharp emergence of sustained activity along the dorsal visual pathway suggests a functional boundary between early visual areas, which encode sensory inputs, and downstream association areas, which additionally encode mnemonic representations. Moreover, local field potential oscillations in MT encoded the memorized directions and, in the low frequencies, were phase-coherent with LPFC spikes. This suggests that LPFC sustained activity modulates synaptic activity in MT, a putative top-down mechanism by which memory signals influence stimulus processing in early visual cortex.