A spatial memory signal shows that the parietal cortex has access to a craniotopic representation of space
- Columbia University, United States
Abstract
Humans effortlessly establish a gist-like memory of their environment whenever they enter a new place, a memory that can guide action even in the absence of vision. Neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) of the monkey exhibit a form of this environmental memory. These neurons respond when a monkey makes a saccade that brings the spatial location of a stimulus that appeared on a number of prior trials, but not on the present trial, into their receptive fields (RFs). The stimulus need never have appeared in the neuron's RF. This memory response is usually weaker, with a longer latency than the neuron's visual response. We suggest that these results demonstrate that LIP has access to a supraretinal memory of space, which is activated when the spatial location of the vanished stimulus can be described by a retinotopic vector from the center of gaze to the remembered spatial location.
Article and author information
Author details
Michael E Goldberg
Funding
National Eye Institute (R24 EY-015634)
- Michael E Goldberg
National Eye Institute (R01 EY-017039)
- Michael E Goldberg
National Eye Institute (P30 EY-019007)
- Michael E Goldberg
National Eye Institute (R01 EY-014978)
- Michael E Goldberg
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (2T32MH015174-35)
- Mulugeta Semework
W. M. Keck Foundation
- Michael E Goldberg
Gatsby Charitable Foundation
- Michael E Goldberg
Fight for Sight
- Michael E Goldberg
Dana Foundation
- Michael E Goldberg
Kavli Foundation
- Michael E Goldberg
National Eye Institute (R21 EY-017938)
- Michael E Goldberg
National Eye Institute (R21 EY-020631)
- Michael E Goldberg
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: The Animal Care and Use Committees at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute approved all of the animal protocols in this study as complying with the guidelines established in the United States Public Health Service Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. protocol NYSPI-1225-C
Copyright
© 2018, Semework et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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A spatial memory signal shows that the parietal cortex has access to a craniotopic representation of space
eLife 7:e30762.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.30762
