# Oscillatory Contributions to Working Memory and Attention

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON · 2020 · $473,846

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
An increasingly prominent theme in working memory (WM) research is the idea that information can be held in
WM in different states of priority. The PI's group has explored this with a procedure that unconfounds the
contents of WM from the focus of attention. In this dual serial retrocuing (DSR) task, one of two items held in
WM is cued as the target of an impending memory probe, thereby acquiring the status of “attended memory
item” (AMI). Although the uncued item (the “unattended memory item,” UMI) can't be dropped from WM
(because it may be tested later in the trial), multivariate evidence for its active retention, as measured with
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or electroencephalography (EEG), drops to baseline levels. This
novel and unexpected finding – that information in WM can lack a detectable active trace -- has prompted
several important questions that will be addressed by pursuing three specific aims:
Aim 1: To test the hypothesis that the cognitive control of unattended memory items (UMI) is implemented by
the same frontoparietal mechanisms that control spatial and nonspatial attention.
Aim 2: To test the hypothesis that the selection of visual stimuli, whether from the environment or from WM, is
accomplished, in part, by the hijacking of low-frequency oscillatory dynamics that are fundamental to the waking-
state physiology of the corticothalamic circuitry of the visual system.
Aim 3: To test the hypothesis that the function of context binding contributes to delay-period activity of the
posterior parietal cortex (PPC).
These Aims will be pursued with experiments that employ extracranial EEG, in many cases with concurrent
transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), in neurologically healthy young adults, as well as with experiments
acquiring electrocorticography (ECoG) recordings from patients undergoing presurgical planning as a part of
the clinical treatment of their epilepsy. From a broad perspective, the research program proposed here
addresses a question that is of central importance for cognitive neuroscience and for mental health: What are
the mechanisms whereby we control the contents of our thoughts? Its potential implications for mental health
derive both from the psychological processes for which it has relevance (e.g., ruminative thought patterns,
cognitive reappraisal, hallucination, processing trauma), and from the neurophysiological mechanisms that are
disordered in psychiatric disease (e.g., patterns of disordered neural oscillations in schizophrenia).

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9881348
- **Project number:** 5R01MH095984-07
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
- **Principal Investigator:** BRADLEY R POSTLE
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $473,846
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2012-12-14 → 2023-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9881348

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9881348, Oscillatory Contributions to Working Memory and Attention (5R01MH095984-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9881348. Licensed CC0.

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