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Subject: IN-SYNC BRAIN WAVES HOLD MEMORY OF OBJECTS JUST SEEN

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH NIH News 
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) <http://www.nimh.nih.gov/>
National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
<http://www.ninds.nih.gov/>
For Immediate Release: Friday, November 2, 2012

CONTACT: Jules Asher, 301-443-4536, <e-mail: [log in to unmask]>
 
IN-SYNC BRAIN WAVES HOLD MEMORY OF OBJECTS JUST SEEN 
Brain's code for visual working memory deciphered in monkeys -- NIH-funded
study

The brain holds in mind what has just been seen by synchronizing brain waves
in a working memory circuit, an animal study supported by the National
Institutes of Health suggests. The more in-sync such electrical signals of
neurons were in two key hubs of the circuit, the more those cells held the
short-term memory of a just-seen object.

Charles Gray, Ph.D.,
<http://www.mbprogram.montana.edu/faculty.asp?per_id=110&in_id=7> of Montana
State University, Bozeman, a grantee
<http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=8256603&icd
e=14299129&ddparam=&ddvalue=&ddsub=&cr=1&csb=default&cs=ASC> of NIH's
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and colleagues, report their
findings Nov. 1, 2012, online, in the journal Science Express.

"This work demonstrates, for the first time, that there is information about
short term memories reflected in in-sync brainwaves," explained Gray.

"The Holy Grail of neuroscience has been to understand how and where
information is encoded in the brain. This study provides more evidence that
large scale electrical oscillations across distant brain regions may carry
information for visual memories," said NIMH director Thomas R. Insel, M.D.

Prior to the study, scientists had observed synchronous patterns of
electrical activity between the two circuit hubs after a monkey saw an
object, but weren't sure if the signals actually represent such short-term
visual memories in the brain.  Rather, it was thought that such neural
oscillations might play the role of a traffic cop, directing information
along brain highways.   

To find out more, Gray, Rodrigo Salazar Ph.D., and Nick Dotson of Montana
State and Steven Bressler, Ph.D., at Florida Atlantic University, Boca
Raton, recorded electrical signals from groups of neurons in both hubs of
two monkeys performing a visual working memory task. To earn a reward, the
monkeys had to remember an object - or its location - that they saw
momentarily on a computer screen and correctly match it.  The researchers
expected to see the telltale boost in synchrony during a delay period
immediately after an object disappeared from the screen, when the monkey had
to hold information briefly in mind.

The degree of synchronous activity, or coherence, between cells in the areas
was plotted for different objects the monkeys saw.

Brain waves of many neurons in the two hubs, called the prefrontal cortex
and posterior parietal cortex, synchronized to varying degrees - depending
on an object's identity (see picture below).  This and other evidence
indicated that neurons in these hubs are selective for particular features
in the visual field and that synchronization in the circuit carries
content-specific information that might contribute to visual working memory.


The researchers also determined that the parietal cortex was more
influential than the prefrontal cortex in driving this process.  Previously,
many researchers had thought that the firing rate of single neurons in the
prefrontal cortex, the brain's executive, is the major player in working
memory.  

Since synchronized oscillations between populations of cells distinguished
between visual stimuli, it's theoretically possible to determine the correct
answers for the matching tasks the monkeys performed simply by reading their
brain waves.  Similarly, synchrony between cell populations in the two hubs
also distinguished between locations.  So the location of visual
information, like object identity, also appears to be represented by
synchronous brain waves. Again, researchers previously thought that these
functions had mostly to do with the firing rates of neurons.  

So the new findings may upturn prevailing theory.

In addition to NIMH, the research was also supported by the NIH's National
Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). 

The mission of the NIMH is to transform the understanding and treatment of
mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for
prevention, recovery and cure. For more information, visit
<http://www.nimh.nih.gov>.

NINDS <http://www.ninds.nih.gov> is the nation's leading funder of research
on the brain and nervous system. The NINDS mission is to reduce the burden
of neurological disease -- a burden borne by every age group, by every
segment of society, by people all over the world.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical
research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal
agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical
research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both
common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs,
visit <www.nih.gov>.

NIH...Turning Discovery into Health -- Registered, U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office
----------------
REFERENCE:

Salazar RF, Dotson NM, Bressler SL, Gray CM. Content specific
fronto-parietal synchronization during visual working
memory.<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/10/31/science.1224000>
Nov. 1 2012. Science Express. Epub ahead of print.
----------------
The html version of this release contains two images. Hubs of brain working
memory circuit at
<http://www.nimh.nih.gov/images/news-items/brain_visual_working_memory2.png>
and In-sync brain waves encode short-term memory of objects at
<http://www.nimh.nih.gov/images/news-items/brain_visual_working_memory.png>

###

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