PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Inagaki, Hidehiko K.
AU  - Fontolan, Lorenzo
AU  - Romani, Sandro
AU  - Svoboda, Karel
TI  - Discrete attractor dynamics underlying selective persistent activity in frontal cortex
AID  - 10.1101/203448
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 203448
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/10/16/203448.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/10/16/203448.full
AB  - Short-term memories link events separated in time, such as past sensation and future actions. Short-term memories are correlated with selective persistent activity, which can be maintained over seconds. In a delayed response task that requires short-term memory, neurons in mouse anterior lateral motor cortex (ALM) show persistent activity that instructs future actions. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying this persistent activity we combined intracellular and extracellular electrophysiology with optogenetic perturbations and network modeling. During the delay epoch, both membrane potential and population activity of ALM neurons funneled towards discrete endpoints related to specific movement directions. These endpoints were robust to transient shifts in ALM activity caused by optogenetic perturbations. Perturbations occasionally switched the population dynamics to the other endpoint, followed by incorrect actions. Our results are consistent with discrete attractor dynamics underlying short-term memory related to motor planning.