Thalamic projections sustain prefrontal activity during working memory maintenance.
Nat Neurosci
; 20(7): 987-996, 2017 Jul.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28481349
ABSTRACT
The mediodorsal thalamus (MD) shares reciprocal connectivity with the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and decreased MD-PFC connectivity is observed in schizophrenia patients. Patients also display cognitive deficits including impairments in working memory, but a mechanistic link between thalamo-prefrontal circuit function and working memory is missing. Using pathway-specific inhibition, we found directional interactions between mouse MD and medial PFC (mPFC), with MD-to-mPFC supporting working memory maintenance and mPFC-to-MD supporting subsequent choice. We further identify mPFC neurons that display elevated spiking during the delay, a feature that was absent on error trials and required MD inputs for sustained maintenance. Strikingly, delay-tuned neurons had minimal overlap with spatially tuned neurons, and each mPFC population exhibited mutually exclusive dependence on MD and hippocampal inputs. These findings indicate a role for MD in sustaining prefrontal activity during working memory maintenance. Consistent with this idea, we found that enhancing MD excitability was sufficient to enhance task performance.
Texto completo:
1
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Tálamo
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Conducta de Elección
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Corteza Prefrontal
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Memoria a Corto Plazo
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
Límite:
Animals
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Humans
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Male
Idioma:
En
Año:
2017
Tipo del documento:
Article