Controlling brain dynamics: Landscape and transition path for working memory
Fig 4
Barrier height explains the mechanism of temporal gating of distractors in delay epoch.
(A) The time in the delay epoch is modeled as the non-selective ramping external input to all populations in the system [23, 29, 56]. Three typical landscapes are presented to illustrate the effect of external ramping input on the attraction basins, corresponding to the distractor delivered at the early, medium, and late time of the delay epoch. (B) The two fixed points for memory states moved further away from each other for stronger ramping input Iramp. (C) The barrier height (USA), defined as the potential difference between the saddle point and the fixed point of MA, increases with increasing ramping input. For weaker ramping input, the distractors can more easily push the system state beyond the saddle point and switch from the target-related attractor to the distractor-related attractor.