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Working memory capacity of crows and monkeys arises from similar neuronal computations
Complex cognition relies on flexible working memory, which is severely limited in its capacity. The neuronal computations underlying these capacity limits have been extensively studied in humans and in monkeys, resulting in competing theoretical models. We probed the working memory capacity of crows...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8660017/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34859781 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72783 |
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author | Hahn, Lukas Alexander Balakhonov, Dmitry Fongaro, Erica Nieder, Andreas Rose, Jonas |
author_facet | Hahn, Lukas Alexander Balakhonov, Dmitry Fongaro, Erica Nieder, Andreas Rose, Jonas |
author_sort | Hahn, Lukas Alexander |
collection | PubMed |
description | Complex cognition relies on flexible working memory, which is severely limited in its capacity. The neuronal computations underlying these capacity limits have been extensively studied in humans and in monkeys, resulting in competing theoretical models. We probed the working memory capacity of crows (Corvus corone) in a change detection task, developed for monkeys (Macaca mulatta), while we performed extracellular recordings of the prefrontal-like area nidopallium caudolaterale. We found that neuronal encoding and maintenance of information were affected by item load, in a way that is virtually identical to results obtained from monkey prefrontal cortex. Contemporary neurophysiological models of working memory employ divisive normalization as an important mechanism that may result in the capacity limitation. As these models are usually conceptualized and tested in an exclusively mammalian context, it remains unclear if they fully capture a general concept of working memory or if they are restricted to the mammalian neocortex. Here, we report that carrion crows and macaque monkeys share divisive normalization as a neuronal computation that is in line with mammalian models. This indicates that computational models of working memory developed in the mammalian cortex can also apply to non-cortical associative brain regions of birds. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8660017 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-86600172021-12-13 Working memory capacity of crows and monkeys arises from similar neuronal computations Hahn, Lukas Alexander Balakhonov, Dmitry Fongaro, Erica Nieder, Andreas Rose, Jonas eLife Neuroscience Complex cognition relies on flexible working memory, which is severely limited in its capacity. The neuronal computations underlying these capacity limits have been extensively studied in humans and in monkeys, resulting in competing theoretical models. We probed the working memory capacity of crows (Corvus corone) in a change detection task, developed for monkeys (Macaca mulatta), while we performed extracellular recordings of the prefrontal-like area nidopallium caudolaterale. We found that neuronal encoding and maintenance of information were affected by item load, in a way that is virtually identical to results obtained from monkey prefrontal cortex. Contemporary neurophysiological models of working memory employ divisive normalization as an important mechanism that may result in the capacity limitation. As these models are usually conceptualized and tested in an exclusively mammalian context, it remains unclear if they fully capture a general concept of working memory or if they are restricted to the mammalian neocortex. Here, we report that carrion crows and macaque monkeys share divisive normalization as a neuronal computation that is in line with mammalian models. This indicates that computational models of working memory developed in the mammalian cortex can also apply to non-cortical associative brain regions of birds. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2021-12-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8660017/ /pubmed/34859781 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72783 Text en © 2021, Hahn et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Neuroscience Hahn, Lukas Alexander Balakhonov, Dmitry Fongaro, Erica Nieder, Andreas Rose, Jonas Working memory capacity of crows and monkeys arises from similar neuronal computations |
title | Working memory capacity of crows and monkeys arises from similar neuronal computations |
title_full | Working memory capacity of crows and monkeys arises from similar neuronal computations |
title_fullStr | Working memory capacity of crows and monkeys arises from similar neuronal computations |
title_full_unstemmed | Working memory capacity of crows and monkeys arises from similar neuronal computations |
title_short | Working memory capacity of crows and monkeys arises from similar neuronal computations |
title_sort | working memory capacity of crows and monkeys arises from similar neuronal computations |
topic | Neuroscience |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8660017/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34859781 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72783 |
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