CIRCUIT ANALYSIS OF PFC AND MTL INTERACTIONS IN MONKEYS

Boston University (Charles River Campus), Boston MA

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Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY (See instructions): This project addresses the role of functional circuitry of how memories are formed using a non-human primate model. Despite the great deal of evidence that both the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and medial temporal lobe (MTL) are critical for normal memory, there has been remarkably little experimental effort toward understanding how these two systems interact This is, in part, because neurophysiological studies have largely focused on either the PFC or MTL individually. As a result, much of what we know about them is based on comparisons between different animals with different training histories, often on different tasks, and/or different levels of experience. This confounds their comparison and precludes examination of the precise timing of their activity that gives insight into network properties and signal flow. Our goal is a more integrated understanding of the PFC and MTL. We will accomplish this by recording simultaneously from multiple electrodes in multiple subregions of the PFC and MTL while monkeys form and recall new context guided associative memories and while they make inferences based on those memories. By comparing the relative neural latencies for memories to be formed and recalled, we will determine where memories are formed, how they are recalled, and how memory-related signals flow between the PFC and MTL.