TY - JOUR TI - Dissociated sequential activity and stimulus encoding in the dorsomedial striatum during spatial working memory AU - Akhlaghpour, Hessameddin AU - Wiskerke, Joost AU - Choi, Jung Yoon AU - Taliaferro, Joshua P AU - Au, Jennifer AU - Witten, Ilana B A2 - Uchida, Naoshige VL - 5 PY - 2016 DA - 2016/09/16 SP - e19507 C1 - eLife 2016;5:e19507 DO - 10.7554/eLife.19507 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.19507 AB - Several lines of evidence suggest that the striatum has an important role in spatial working memory. The neural dynamics in the striatum have been described in tasks with short delay periods (1–4 s), but remain largely uncharacterized for tasks with longer delay periods. We collected and analyzed single unit recordings from the dorsomedial striatum of rats performing a spatial working memory task with delays up to 10 s. We found that neurons were activated sequentially, with the sequences spanning the entire delay period. Surprisingly, this sequential activity was dissociated from stimulus encoding activity, which was present in the same neurons, but preferentially appeared towards the onset of the delay period. These observations contrast with descriptions of sequential dynamics during similar tasks in other brains areas, and clarify the contribution of the striatum to spatial working memory. KW - striatum KW - working memory KW - electrophysiology JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -