Contributions of narrow- and broad-spiking prefrontal and parietal neurons on working memory tasks

Abstract

Neurons that generate persistent activity in the primate dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortex have been shown to be predictive of behavior in working memory tasks, though subtle differences between them have been observed in how information is represented. The role of different neuron types in each of these areas has not been investigated at depth. We thus compared the activity of neurons classified as narrow-spiking, putative interneurons, and broad-spiking, putative pyramidal neurons, recorded from the dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortex of male monkeys, to analyze their role in the maintenance of working memory. Our results demonstrate that narrow-spiking neurons are active during a range of tasks and generate persistent activity during the delay period over which stimuli need to be maintained in memory. Furthermore, the activity of narrow-spiking neurons was predictive of the subject’s recall no less than that of broad-spiking neurons, which are exclusively projection neurons in the cortex. Our results show that putative interneurons play an active role during the maintenance of working memory and shed light onto the fundamental neural circuits that determine subjects’ memories and judgments.