Diego Mendoza-Halliday: How the Brain Stays on Task - Attention, Noise Filtering and Working Memory

Throughout our waking hours neural networks in our brains are processing incoming information, particularly sights and sounds, integrating those inputs with stored information, making decisions, and executing responses. Staying on task requires that we attend to the details of the task while filtering out ‘noise’.  In this episode I talk with Diego Mendoza-Halliday at the University of Pittsburgh about visual working memory – what it is, what neuronal circuits are involved, and how it works. His experiments involve recording of neuronal activity in prefrontal cortex and other brain regions while individuals are performing visual working memory tasks. His findings have revealed previously unknown mechanisms. He has demonstrated that attention and working memory involve different groups of neurons and has shown that throughout the cerebral cortex there is spectro-laminar motif of neuronal oscillation frequencies that appears to play an important role in working memory. This research is not only revealing how our brains process information in a seemingly effortless manner, but may also lead to new ways of improving human productivity and treating memory disorders.

LINKS

 Mendoza-Halliday lab webpage

https://www.mendoza-halliday-lab.com/ 

Coding of perceived and memorized visual features in the prefrontal cortex

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5461493/pdf/ncomms15471.pdf 

Dissociation of neurons involved in attention and working memory

https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0896-6273%2823%2900935-2 

Spectrolaminar motif of local field power in the cerebral cortex

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10917659/pdf/41593_2023_Article_1554.pdf

Review article on working memory

https://www.annualreviews.org/docserver/fulltext/psych/74/1/annurev-psych-021422-041757.pdf?expires=1739719353&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=3C2E750794D8E913C545FF401FEA62F7