Refrontal Cortex and Working Memory Processes

bstract—Working memory is a mechanism for short-term ctive maintenance of information as well as for processing aintained information. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as been known to participate in working memory. The analsis of task-related dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity hile monkeys performed a variety of working memory tasks evealed that delay-period activity is a neural correlate of a echanism for temporary active maintenance of information, ecause this activity persisted throughout the delay period, howed selectivity to a particular visual feature, and was elated to correct behavioral performances. Information proessing can be considered as a change of the information epresented by a population of neural activities during the rogress of the trial. Using population vectors calculated by population of task-related dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ctivities, we demonstrated the temporal change of informaion represented by a population of dorsolateral prefrontal ortex activities during performances of spatial working emory tasks. Cross-correlation analysis using spike firings f simultaneously isolated pairs of neurons reveals widepread functional interactions among neighboring neurons, specially neurons having delay-period activity, and their ynamic modulation depending on the context of the trial. unctional interactions among neurons and their dynamic odulation could be a mechanism of information processing n the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. © 2005 Published by lsevier Ltd on behalf of IBRO.