A collaborative research group led by Professor Mami Takeda of Kochi University of Technology (Juntendo University, University of Tokyo) "sees things and remembers things" by measuring the brain activity of monkeys during memory tasks. At that time, we discovered that the neural circuit of the temporal lobe of the cerebrum flexibly switches in units of cortical layers. It is a finding that overturns the conventional theory that "a certain neural circuit is responsible for a single cognitive function".
The temporal lobe of the cerebrum is the area that controls memory related to "things (objects)", and there are many nerve cells (neurons) that are active in memory (remembering) and recall (remembering) in this area. do.However, it was unclear how this group of neurons cooperates in recalling memory from the perceptual information of "seeing things", the neural circuit behind it, and its operating principle.
Therefore, this time, we investigated the function of the temporal lobe neural circuit when "seeing things and remembering things" using monkeys.First, the monkeys are trained to learn a pair of visual figures, and when they see a certain figure, they are trained to remember the paired figure. The neural activity of the field was measured at the same time.
As a result, when I saw something, I switched the neural circuit to the shallow layer of the TE field, and when I remembered it, I switched to the deep layer of the TE field.In addition, the activity of the 36th area neuron represented the figure itself that was recalled.Furthermore, the signals of these neural circuits affect the neuronal activity in the superficial cortex of the TE area both during perception and recall of the figure, and if this neural circuit switching is not successful, the monkey cannot remember the figure correctly. ..
This result is expected to lead to highly accurate treatment of memory disorders by advancing the understanding of the operating principle of the cerebral network related to memory recall.
Paper information:[Nature Communications] Dynamic laminar rerouting of inter-areal mnemonic signal by cognitive operations in primate temporal cortex
