Zylberberg Joel, Strowbridge Ben W
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Center for Neuroscience, and Computational Bioscience Program, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado 80045.
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309.
Annu Rev Neurosci. 2017 Jul 25;40:603-627. doi: 10.1146/annurev-neuro-070815-014006.
A commonly observed neural correlate of working memory is firing that persists after the triggering stimulus disappears. Substantial effort has been devoted to understanding the many potential mechanisms that may underlie memory-associated persistent activity. These rely either on the intrinsic properties of individual neurons or on the connectivity within neural circuits to maintain the persistent activity. Nevertheless, it remains unclear which mechanisms are at play in the many brain areas involved in working memory. Herein, we first summarize the palette of different mechanisms that can generate persistent activity. We then discuss recent work that asks which mechanisms underlie persistent activity in different brain areas. Finally, we discuss future studies that might tackle this question further. Our goal is to bridge between the communities of researchers who study either single-neuron biophysical, or neural circuit, mechanisms that can generate the persistent activity that underlies working memory.
工作记忆中一种常见的神经关联是在触发刺激消失后仍持续的放电。人们已投入大量精力来理解可能构成与记忆相关的持续活动基础的诸多潜在机制。这些机制要么依赖于单个神经元的内在特性，要么依赖于神经回路内的连接性来维持持续活动。然而，在涉及工作记忆的众多脑区中，究竟哪些机制在起作用仍不清楚。在此，我们首先总结能够产生持续活动的不同机制。然后我们讨论最近的研究工作，这些研究探讨了不同脑区中持续活动的潜在机制。最后，我们讨论可能进一步解决这个问题的未来研究。我们的目标是在研究能够产生构成工作记忆基础的持续活动的单神经元生物物理机制或神经回路机制的研究人员群体之间架起桥梁。
