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Related Experiment Videos

Microstimulation of frontal cortex can reorder a remembered spatial sequence.

Mark H Histed1, Earl K Miller

  • 1The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, RIKEN-MIT Neuroscience Research Center, Massachusetts, USA. histed@mit.edu

Plos Biology
|April 20, 2006
PubMed
Summary

Memory for sequential order can be separated from the memories of individual items. The supplementary eye field (SEF) may encode sequences by their endpoints, not components.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Behavioral Science

Background:

  • Complex behaviors require serial ordering of memories and coordinated movements.
  • Theories on sequential processing include associative chaining and hierarchical models.
  • Understanding short-term memory and sequence planning is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how the brain codes for short-term memory and planning of sequences.
  • To explore the role of the supplementary eye field (SEF) in sequential processing.

Main Methods:

  • Used microstimulation to perturb neural activity in the SEF in animals.
  • Animals were trained to hold a sequence of two cued locations in memory over a short delay.
  • Observed the effect of SEF stimulation on saccadic eye movements to the cued locations.

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Main Results:

  • SEF stimulation altered the order of saccades to cued locations.
  • Memory for the cued locations themselves was unaffected by stimulation.
  • SEF stimulation biased sequence endpoints toward contralateral space.

Conclusions:

  • Memory for sequential order is dissociable from memory for individual sequence components.
  • The supplementary eye field (SEF) may represent sequences based on their endpoints.
  • This suggests a potential endpoint-based coding mechanism for sequences in the SEF.