TY - JOUR TI - Working memory capacity of crows and monkeys arises from similar neuronal computations AU - Hahn, Lukas Alexander AU - Balakhonov, Dmitry AU - Fongaro, Erica AU - Nieder, Andreas AU - Rose, Jonas A2 - Rich, Erin L A2 - Frank, Michael J A2 - Colombo, Mike VL - 10 PY - 2021 DA - 2021/12/03 SP - e72783 C1 - eLife 2021;10:e72783 DO - 10.7554/eLife.72783 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72783 AB - Complex cognition relies on flexible working memory, which is severely limited in its capacity. The neuronal computations underlying these capacity limits have been extensively studied in humans and in monkeys, resulting in competing theoretical models. We probed the working memory capacity of crows (Corvus corone) in a change detection task, developed for monkeys (Macaca mulatta), while we performed extracellular recordings of the prefrontal-like area nidopallium caudolaterale. We found that neuronal encoding and maintenance of information were affected by item load, in a way that is virtually identical to results obtained from monkey prefrontal cortex. Contemporary neurophysiological models of working memory employ divisive normalization as an important mechanism that may result in the capacity limitation. As these models are usually conceptualized and tested in an exclusively mammalian context, it remains unclear if they fully capture a general concept of working memory or if they are restricted to the mammalian neocortex. Here, we report that carrion crows and macaque monkeys share divisive normalization as a neuronal computation that is in line with mammalian models. This indicates that computational models of working memory developed in the mammalian cortex can also apply to non-cortical associative brain regions of birds. KW - Corvus corone KW - divisive normalization KW - working memory capacity KW - comparative cognition JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -