Prof. Gray's Lecture - Distributed Cortico-Cortical Interactions Underlying Visual Working Memory
Title: Distributed Cortico-Cortical Interactions Underlying Visual Working Memory
Speaker: Prof. Charles M. Gray, Montana State University, USA
Chair: Prof. Tianzi Jiang, Brainnetome Center, CASIA
Time: 10:00-11:00, Oct. 27, 2016
Venue: The 1st meeting room, 3rd floor of the Intelligence Building
[Abstract]
Cognitive processes, such as working memory, engage large neuronal populations spanning widespread cortical and subcortical areas. To further understand the task dependence, and the spectral, temporal and spatial organization of these activity patterns, we designed a large-scale recording system that enables the chronic implantation of 256 independently movable microelectrodes spanning an entire cerebral hemisphere in macaque monkeys. We implanted this system in two animals and recorded neuronal activity from more than 50 separate cortical areas while the animals performed an object-based, visual delayed match-to-sample task and a set of control tasks. Analysis of the unit activity revealed a widespread distribution of task dependent and content specific cellular responses, concentrated in multiple areas of the prefrontal, premotor, posterior parietal and visual cortices. Analysis of the local field potential (LFP) revealed striking regional variations in the distribution of spectral power and coherence. These signals displayed a mixture of increases and decreases in magnitude during the task. Coherence and phase-locking analyses revealed widespread, task-dependent patterns of correlated activity that varied in frequency and phase. These studies provide the first analysis of the temporal and spectral patterns of cortical neuronal activity spanning a cerebral hemisphere in macaque monkeys performing a cognitive task
[Biography]
EDUCATION:
1981 B.S. in Biochemistry, University of Arizona
1986 Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine
POSTDOCTORAL TRAINING:
1986-1989 Post Doc, Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany.
AWARDS AND HONORS:
1991 - Klingenstein Fellowship in the Neurosciences
1991 - Sloan Fellowship in the Neurosciences
1991 - McDonnel-Pew Fellowship in Cognitive Neuroscience
2013 - McKnight Cognitive Disorders Award
SOCIETIES:
Member, Society for Neuroscience, United States
Member, American Physiological Society
MAJOR RESEARCH INTERESTS:
1. neuronal mechanisms underlying visual perception
2. mechanisms controlling the temporal coordination of distributed neuronal processes
3. distributed neuronal interactions underlying visual working memory
4. the development of new technologies for large-scale neurophysiological studies in monkeys
