Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Neuronal oscillations are suggested to play an important role in auditory working memory (WM), but their contribution to content-specific representations has remained unclear. Here, we measure magnetoencephalography during a retro-cueing task with parametric ripple-sound stimuli, which are spectrotemporally similar to speech but resist non-auditory memory strategies. Using machine learning analyses, with rigorous between-subject cross-validation and non-parametric permutation testing, we show that memorized sound content is strongly represented in phase-synchronization patterns between subregions of auditory and frontoparietal cortices. These phase-synchronization patterns predict the memorized sound content steadily across the studied maintenance period. In addition to connectivity-based representations, there are indices of more local, "activity silent" representations in auditory cortices, where the decoding accuracy of WM content significantly increases after task-irrelevant "impulse stimuli." Our results demonstrate that synchronization patterns across auditory sensory and association areas orchestrate neuronal coding of auditory WM content. This connectivity-based coding scheme could also extend beyond the auditory domain.
Source: Cell Reports
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $5,200
Awards: Mapping the intrinsic functional organization of auditory cortex in individual subjects using 7T MRI, Non-invasive measures of multisensory cortical feedforward and feedback influences, Decoding parametric attributes of auditory working memories from human brain activity, Center for Functional Imaging Technologies, Scalable and Sensor-Agnostic Software for Distributed Processing and Visualization of Multi-Site MEG/EEG Datasets
OpenAlex ID: W3196177046