2022/03/08 by Dimitris A. Pinotsis, Earl K. Miller · 1 voice · 4 citations
Engineering · Neuroscience · #Advanced Memory and Neural Computing #Neural dynamics and brain function #Photoreceptor and optogenetics research
paper · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119058
openalex publication_date 2022/03/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
It is known that the exact neurons maintaining a given memory (the neural ensemble) change from trial to trial. This raises the question of how the brain achieves stability in the face of this representational drift. Here, we demonstrate that this stability emerges at the level of the electric fields that arise from neural activity. We show that electric fields carry information about working memory content. The electric fields, in turn, can act as "guard rails" that funnel higher dimensional variable neural activity along stable lower dimensional routes. We obtained the latent space associated with each memory. We then confirmed the stability of the electric field by mapping the latent space to different cortical patches (that comprise a neural ensemble) and reconstructing information flow between patches. Stable electric fields can allow latent states to be transferred between brain areas, in accord with modern engram theory.