Disorders of perception, attention, and memory frequently accompany the major mental diseases. To understand the neural mechanisms of these mental processes, we are recording the activity of neurons in the extrastriate and prefrontal cortex of monkeys engaged in tasks requiring visual discrimination, attention, and memory. Some inferior temporal neurons appear to function as adaptive mnemonic filters, whose response is suppressed according to the similarity of the present stimulus to both short- and long-term memory traces. As one gains experience with new stimuli, the pool of activated cells in inferior temporal cortex shrinks to just those cells carrying the most critical information, providing a possible basis for long-term memory. Other inferior temporal neurons can be """"""""primed"""""""" by prefrontal mechanisms to detect a particular sought-for stimulus in a temporal sequence, providing a basis for working memory. During recall of stored memories, specific neurons in inferior temporal cortex and area V4 are reactivated, thereby segregating, or """"""""labeling"""""""", the neurons providing the information needed for a given task. All of these mnemonic processes are engaged when searching a scene for a particular object, such as looking for a face in a crowd. In such a situation, mnemonic mechanisms in inferior temporal cortex appear to select the objects we attend to and foveate. More generally, they may select the objects acted upon by motor systems.
| Pitcher, David; Japee, Shruti; Rauth, Lionel et al. (2017) The Superior Temporal Sulcus Is Causally Connected to the Amygdala: A Combined TBS-fMRI Study. J Neurosci 37:1156-1161 |
| Zhang, Hui; Japee, Shruti; Nolan, Rachel et al. (2016) Face-selective regions differ in their ability to classify facial expressions. Neuroimage 130:77-90 |
| Gregoriou, Georgia G; Gotts, Stephen J; Zhou, Huihui et al. (2009) High-frequency, long-range coupling between prefrontal and visual cortex during attention. Science 324:1207-10 |
| Ungerleider, Leslie G; Galkin, Thelma W; Desimone, Robert et al. (2008) Cortical connections of area V4 in the macaque. Cereb Cortex 18:477-99 |
| Berman, Rebecca A; Heiser, Laura M; Dunn, Catherine A et al. (2007) Dynamic circuitry for updating spatial representations. III. From neurons to behavior. J Neurophysiol 98:105-21 |
| Womelsdorf, Thilo; Fries, Pascal; Mitra, Partha P et al. (2006) Gamma-band synchronization in visual cortex predicts speed of change detection. Nature 439:733-6 |
| Bichot, Narcisse P; Desimone, Robert (2006) Finding a face in the crowd: parallel and serial neural mechanisms of visual selection. Prog Brain Res 155:147-56 |
| Schulz, G M; Varga, M; Jeffires, K et al. (2005) Functional neuroanatomy of human vocalization: an H215O PET study. Cereb Cortex 15:1835-47 |
| Bichot, Narcisse P; Rossi, Andrew F; Desimone, Robert (2005) Parallel and serial neural mechanisms for visual search in macaque area V4. Science 308:529-34 |
| Buffalo, Elizabeth A; Bertini, Giuseppe; Ungerleider, Leslie G et al. (2005) Impaired filtering of distracter stimuli by TE neurons following V4 and TEO lesions in macaques. Cereb Cortex 15:141-51 |
Showing the most recent 10 out of 21 publications
