Jung Dennis Y, Sahoo Bikash C, Snyder Adam C
Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, United States.
Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, United States.
Front Integr Neurosci. 2025 Mar 24;19:1553521. doi: 10.3389/fnint.2025.1553521. eCollection 2025.
Anticipating distractors during working memory maintenance is critical to reduce their disruptive effects. In this study, we aimed to identify the oscillatory correlates of this process across different spatial scales of neural activity.
We simultaneously recorded local field potentials (LFP) from the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and electroencephalograms (EEG) from the scalp of monkeys performing a modified memory-guided saccade (MGS) task. The monkeys were required to remember the location of a target visual stimulus while anticipating distracting visual stimulus, flashed at 50% probability during the delay period.
We found significant theta-band activity across spatial scales during anticipation of a distractor, closely linked with underlying working memory dynamics, through decoding and cross-temporal generalization analyses. EEG particularly reflected reactivation of memory around the anticipated time of a distractor, even in the absence of stimuli. During this anticipated time, beta-band activity exhibited transiently enhanced intrahemispheric communication between the LPFC and occipitoparietal brain areas. These oscillatory phenomena were observed only when the monkeys successfully performed the task, implicating their possible functional role in mitigating anticipated distractors.
Our results demonstrate that distractor anticipation recruits multiple oscillatory processes across the brain during working memory maintenance, with a key activity observed predominantly in the theta and beta bands.
在工作记忆维持过程中预测干扰物对于减少其干扰作用至关重要。在本研究中,我们旨在确定这一过程在不同神经活动空间尺度上的振荡相关性。
我们同时记录了执行改良记忆引导扫视(MGS)任务的猴子外侧前额叶皮层(LPFC)的局部场电位(LFP)和头皮脑电图(EEG)。猴子需要记住目标视觉刺激的位置,同时预测延迟期内以50%概率闪现的干扰视觉刺激。
通过解码和跨时间泛化分析,我们发现在预测干扰物期间,跨空间尺度存在显著的θ波段活动,这与潜在的工作记忆动态密切相关。EEG尤其反映了在预测干扰物出现时间前后记忆的重新激活,即使在没有刺激的情况下也是如此。在这个预测时间内,β波段活动表现出LPFC与枕顶脑区之间半球内通信的短暂增强。这些振荡现象仅在猴子成功执行任务时观察到,暗示了它们在减轻预期干扰物方面可能的功能作用。
我们的结果表明,在工作记忆维持过程中,预测干扰物会在大脑中引发多个振荡过程,主要在θ和β波段观察到关键活动。