When holding information in mind, neural activity is more focused when and where there are bursts of gamma frequency rhythms. Working memory is the handy ability to consciously hold and manipulate new information in mind. It takes mental work. In particular, participating neurons in the prefronta
Remembering directions someone just gave you is an example of working memory. In a new study, MIT researchers show that the brain’s focus on the contents of what it’s holding in mind derives from bursts of gamma frequency rhythms in the front of the brain.
In several studies between 2016 and 2018, lead author Mikael Lundqvist and co-senior author Earl K. Miller showed through direct measurements of hundreds of neurons and rigorous modeling that bursts of gamma frequency rhythms in the prefrontal cortex coordinate neural representation of the information held in mind. The information representation can be measured in the synchronized spiking of populations of individual neurons.
While activity was clearly modulated by the task, so was the variability from trial to trial. In each task, they found that variability was highest before the tasks began — a “baseline” condition in which the animals could think about whatever they wanted. But once the animals had to focus on the task again, their gamma bursts and neural spiking became much more similar to what it had been the last time or the next time they did the task.
Using their measurements of gamma bursts and their variability, they computationally played with simulating variations in spiking , to see if reductions in gamma burst variation necessarily led to reductions in spiking variation.
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