Emergence of task-dependent representations in working memory circuits Savin, Cristina Triesch, Jochen A wealth of experimental evidence suggests that working memory circuits preferentially represent information that is behaviorally relevant. Still, we are missing a mechanistic account of how these representations come about. Here we provide a simple explanation for a range of experimental findings, in light of prefrontal circuits adapting to task constraints by reward-dependent learning. In particular, we model a neural network shaped by reward-modulated spike-timing dependent plasticity (r-STDP) and homeostatic plasticity (intrinsic excitability and synaptic scaling). We show that the experimentally-observed neural representations naturally emerge in an initially unstructured circuit as it learns to solve several working memory tasks. These results point to a critical, and previously unappreciated, role for reward-dependent learning in shaping prefrontal cortex activity. Frontiers Research Foundation 2014 info:eu-repo/semantics/article doc-type:article text http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_2df8fbb1 https://research-explorer.ista.ac.at/record/1931 Savin C, Triesch J. Emergence of task-dependent representations in working memory circuits. <i>Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience</i>. 2014;8(MAY). doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2014.00057">10.3389/fncom.2014.00057</a> eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.3389/fncom.2014.00057 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/wos/000336715400001 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess