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Prefrontal cortex represents long-term memory of object values for months

Ghazizadeh, A ; Sharif University of Technology | 2018

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.05.017
  3. Publisher: Cell Press , 2018
  4. Abstract:
  5. As a central hub for cognitive control, prefrontal cortex (PFC) is thought to utilize memories. However, unlike working or short-term memory, the neuronal representation of long-term memory in PFC has not been systematically investigated. Using single-unit recordings in macaques, we show that PFC neurons rapidly update and maintain responses to objects based on short-term reward history. Interestingly, after repeated object-reward association, PFC neurons continue to show value-biased responses to objects even in the absence of reward. This value-biased response is retained for several months after training and is resistant to extinction and to interference from new object-reward learning for many complex objects (>90). Accordingly, the monkeys remember the values of the learned objects for several months in separate testing. These findings reveal that in addition to flexible short-term and low-capacity memories, primate PFC represents stable long-term and high-capacity memories, which could prioritize valuable objects far into the future. In this article, Ghazizadeh et al. present a systematic investigation of value memory in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex neurons in macaque monkeys lasting from a few minutes to several months. This value memory is shown to be robust against forgetting and interference and allows animals to find many valuable objects long after reward learning. © 2018
  6. Keywords:
  7. High-capacity memory ; Long-term memory ; Macaque monkey ; Object values ; Prefrontal cortex ; Single-unit recording ; Value learning
  8. Source: Current Biology ; Volume 28, Issue 14 , 23 July , 2018 , Pages 2206-2217.e5 ; 09609822 (ISSN)
  9. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218306195