Short Term Memory
In brain regions as diverse as prefrontal cortex and brainstem, a key correlate of short-term memory is the presence of persistent neural activity: spike activity that corresponds to the memory of a stimulus and continues even after the stimulus is removed. A promising system in which to study short-term memory is the brainstem, where in lower vertebrates as few as 100 neurons are capable of storing eye position. These neurons can maintain a fixed firing rate corresponding to a given eye position for many seconds without visual feedback, and this brain region performs well even after sharp temperature changes or partial inactivation. Such robust performance suggests the presence of rapid compensatory mechanisms. By manipulating second messenger signaling or activity-dependent synaptic learning rules, candidate mechanisms for short-term memory can be studied.
Contact:
Jonathan Cohen