Reevaluating the Role of Persistent Neural Activity in Short-Term Memory

Published on January 30, 2020

A traditional view of short-term working memory (STM) is that task-relevant information is maintained ‘online’ in persistent spiking activity. However, recent experimental and modeling studies have begun to question this long-held belief. In this review, we discuss new evidence demonstrating that information can be ‘silently’ maintained via short-term synaptic plasticity (STSP) without the need for persistent activity. We discuss how the neural mechanisms underlying STM are inextricably linked with the cognitive demands of the task, such that the passive maintenance and the active manipulation of information are subserved differently in the brain.

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