Neural correlates of auditory short-term memory in rostral superior temporal cortex

Background: Auditory short-term memory (STM) in the monkey is less robust than visual STM and may depend on a retained sensory trace, which is likely to reside in the higher-order cortical areas of the auditory ventral stream.

Results: We recorded from the rostral superior temporal cortex as monkeys performed serial auditory delayed match-to-sample (DMS). A subset of neurons exhibited modulations of their firing rate during the delay between sounds, during the sensory response, or during both. This distributed subpopulation carried a predominantly sensory signal modulated by the mnemonic context of the stimulus. Excitatory and suppressive effects on match responses were dissociable in their timing and in their resistance to sounds intervening between the sample and match.

Conclusions: Like the monkeys' behavioral performance, these neuronal effects differ from those reported in the same species during visual DMS, suggesting different neural mechanisms for retaining dynamic sounds and static images in STM.