Prefrontal cortex (PFC) participates in a network with other cortical and sub-cortical structures, which serves to hold information active over short periods of time. This """"""""neuronal glue"""""""" of consciousness is responsible for our ability to plan, read, and reason and reaches its greatest cortical expanse in humans. Evidence suggests that PFC contains cortically separate working memory domains for aspects of vision, audition, and language. What is the nature of the interaction between these areas? The aim of the proposed experiments is to look at two of these areas, 4 and 12, which has been identified as working memory centers for spatial and object aspects of visual stimuli respectively. Previous research in our laboratory has suggested that corticocortical connections between these regions exist. In the proposed experiments rhesus monkeys will be trained on a working memory task in which the animal encodes either the form or location of a visual stimulus or both. Multi-electrodes in these areas will record activity simultaneously. It is hypothesized that although different aspects of visual information arrive at PFC in parallel, interactions will exist between visual sub-modalities. This research may reveal the dynamic properties of PFC in terms of its ability to integrate information about stimuli that had been initially segregated in primary visual cortex. Finally, this investigation could offer physiological mechanisms through which different features distributed across cortex could be unified into a consciously perceived item (i.e. the """"""""binding problem"""""""").
| Constantinidis, C; Franowicz, M N; Goldman-Rakic, P S (2001) Coding specificity in cortical microcircuits: a multiple-electrode analysis of primate prefrontal cortex. J Neurosci 21:3646-55 |
| Constantinidis, C; Franowicz, M N; Goldman-Rakic, P S (2001) The sensory nature of mnemonic representation in the primate prefrontal cortex. Nat Neurosci 4:311-6 |
