The causal role of auditory cortex in auditory working memory
Liping Yu,
Jiawei Hu,
Chenlin Shi,
Li Zhou,
Maozhi Tian,
Jiping Zhang,
Jinghong Xu
Affiliations
Liping Yu
Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education and Shanghai), Key Laboratory of Adolescent Health Assessment and Exercise Intervention of Ministry of Education, and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Jiawei Hu
Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education and Shanghai), Key Laboratory of Adolescent Health Assessment and Exercise Intervention of Ministry of Education, and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Chenlin Shi
Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education and Shanghai), Key Laboratory of Adolescent Health Assessment and Exercise Intervention of Ministry of Education, and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Li Zhou
Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education and Shanghai), Key Laboratory of Adolescent Health Assessment and Exercise Intervention of Ministry of Education, and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Maozhi Tian
Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education and Shanghai), Key Laboratory of Adolescent Health Assessment and Exercise Intervention of Ministry of Education, and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Jiping Zhang
Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education and Shanghai), Key Laboratory of Adolescent Health Assessment and Exercise Intervention of Ministry of Education, and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education and Shanghai), Key Laboratory of Adolescent Health Assessment and Exercise Intervention of Ministry of Education, and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Working memory (WM), the ability to actively hold information in memory over a delay period of seconds, is a fundamental constituent of cognition. Delay-period activity in sensory cortices has been observed in WM tasks, but whether and when the activity plays a functional role for memory maintenance remains unclear. Here, we investigated the causal role of auditory cortex (AC) for memory maintenance in mice performing an auditory WM task. Electrophysiological recordings revealed that AC neurons were active not only during the presentation of the auditory stimulus but also early in the delay period. Furthermore, optogenetic suppression of neural activity in AC during the stimulus epoch and early delay period impaired WM performance, whereas suppression later in the delay period did not. Thus, AC is essential for information encoding and maintenance in auditory WM task, especially during the early delay period.