Here we have reported that neural circuits in the ACC and the FEF synchronize the phases of theta- and beta-specific activity during the short-term retention of stimulus locations in a working memory task. This working memory-induced interareal synchronization (1) was evident in more than half of the LFP-LFP recording pairs, (2) translated to spiking activity in the ACC and FEF with significant interareal spike-LFP synchronization in both anatomical directions, that is, with spikes from ACC coupled to LFPs in FEF and with FEF spikes coupling to LFPs from ACC, (3) indexed correct versus erroneous working memory performance, and (4) exhibited asymmetric directionality, with stronger influence of ACC over FEF than vice versa. These findings provide evidence that functional interactions between brain areas implementing (associated with FEF) and biasing (associated with ACC) working memory and also higher-order cognitive performance proceed through phase-synchronized activation at band-limited theta and beta rhythmic activity151626. These results indicate how larger working memory networks coordinate their activity and constrain the possible cell and circuit mechanisms that underlie successful working memory performance7.
