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The Enigma of Working Memory: Changing Views
Working memory is of great interest because of its importance in cognitive function, its relation to consciousness, and impairments in disease, but the cellular mechanisms remain elusive and controversial. A recent article by Barbosa and colleagues overturns the conclusions of an influential study b...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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SAGE Publications
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9449432/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35081841 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10738584211072747 |
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author | Douglas Fields, R. |
author_facet | Douglas Fields, R. |
author_sort | Douglas Fields, R. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Working memory is of great interest because of its importance in cognitive function, its relation to consciousness, and impairments in disease, but the cellular mechanisms remain elusive and controversial. A recent article by Barbosa and colleagues overturns the conclusions of an influential study by Wolff and colleagues, which concluded that working memory can be maintained in a hidden state by transient plasticity of synaptic connections that form dynamic ensembles of neurons encoding information temporarily. A reanalysis of the data reveals that there is a persistent electrically active signature in the EEG recordings that is sustained for the duration of the working memory. This reanalysis adds to a large body of evidence indicating that working memory is encoded by sustained action potential firing. However, several studies show that unconscious (unattended) working memories can be recalled even in the absence of measurable neural activity, suggesting that electrically silent mechanisms may be involved. Testing that hypothesis is problematic, given that it posits no neuronal firing that could be easily measured. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9449432 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | SAGE Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-94494322022-09-08 The Enigma of Working Memory: Changing Views Douglas Fields, R. Neuroscientist Update Working memory is of great interest because of its importance in cognitive function, its relation to consciousness, and impairments in disease, but the cellular mechanisms remain elusive and controversial. A recent article by Barbosa and colleagues overturns the conclusions of an influential study by Wolff and colleagues, which concluded that working memory can be maintained in a hidden state by transient plasticity of synaptic connections that form dynamic ensembles of neurons encoding information temporarily. A reanalysis of the data reveals that there is a persistent electrically active signature in the EEG recordings that is sustained for the duration of the working memory. This reanalysis adds to a large body of evidence indicating that working memory is encoded by sustained action potential firing. However, several studies show that unconscious (unattended) working memories can be recalled even in the absence of measurable neural activity, suggesting that electrically silent mechanisms may be involved. Testing that hypothesis is problematic, given that it posits no neuronal firing that could be easily measured. SAGE Publications 2022-01-26 2022-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9449432/ /pubmed/35081841 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10738584211072747 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
spellingShingle | Update Douglas Fields, R. The Enigma of Working Memory: Changing Views |
title | The Enigma of Working Memory: Changing Views |
title_full | The Enigma of Working Memory: Changing Views |
title_fullStr | The Enigma of Working Memory: Changing Views |
title_full_unstemmed | The Enigma of Working Memory: Changing Views |
title_short | The Enigma of Working Memory: Changing Views |
title_sort | enigma of working memory: changing views |
topic | Update |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9449432/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35081841 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10738584211072747 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT douglasfieldsr theenigmaofworkingmemorychangingviews AT douglasfieldsr enigmaofworkingmemorychangingviews |