Mendoza-Halliday Diego, Xu Haoran, Azevedo Frederico A C, Desimone Robert
bioRxiv. 2023 Mar 2:2023.03.01.530719. doi: 10.1101/2023.03.01.530719.
Attention and working memory (WM) are distinct cognitive functions, yet given their close interactions, it has been proposed that they share the same neuronal mechanisms. Here we show that in macaques performing a WM-guided feature attention task, the activity of most neurons in areas middle temporal (MT), medial superior temporal (MST), lateral intraparietal (LIP), and posterior lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC-p) displays either WM coding or attentional modulation, but not both. One area thought to play a role in both functions is LPFC-p. To test this, we optogenetically inactivated LPFC-p bilaterally during the attention or WM periods of the task. Attention period inactivation reduced attentional modulation in LPFC-p, MST, and LIP neurons, and impaired task performance. WM period inactivation did not affect attentional modulation nor performance, and minimally reduced WM coding. Our results suggest that feature attention and WM have dissociable neuronal substrates, and that LPFC-p plays a critical role in attention but not WM.
注意力和工作记忆（WM）是不同的认知功能，但鉴于它们之间的密切相互作用，有人提出它们共享相同的神经元机制。在这里，我们表明，在执行WM引导的特征注意力任务的猕猴中，颞中区（MT）、颞上内侧区（MST）、顶内外侧区（LIP）和前额叶后侧皮质（LPFC-p）中大多数神经元的活动要么显示WM编码，要么显示注意力调制，但不会同时显示两者。一个被认为在这两种功能中都起作用的区域是LPFC-p。为了验证这一点，我们在任务的注意力或WM阶段对双侧LPFC-p进行光遗传学失活。注意力阶段失活降低了LPFC-p、MST和LIP神经元的注意力调制，并损害了任务表现。WM阶段失活既不影响注意力调制也不影响表现，并最小程度地降低了WM编码。我们的结果表明，特征注意力和WM具有可分离的神经元基质，并且LPFC-p在注意力而非WM中起关键作用。
