Parietal Priorities: Maintenance versus Manipulation in Working Memory
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1
La Trobe University, Australia
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2
Swinburne University, Australia
Background
Over the years, neuroimaging analysis has revealed a fronto-parietal network of sites responsible for working memory (WM). While conceptual models of WM separate maintenance of stimuli from attention, whether this separation is apparent in the brain is questionable. This separation was explored by utilizing a simple maintenance only 1-back task and also an equivalent task with manipulation demands added.
Methods
During the maintenance only task, participants were presented with 3D block shapes and asked to indicate whether they were a repeat of the shape previously presented. The maintenance plus manipulation task was exactly the same except that repeated block shapes were rotated 90⁰ on a vertical axis, requiring participants to mentally rotate the shapes. A sample of 16 healthy volunteers (9 female; m=23.94 years ± 2.49) completed the tasks while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Results
The maintenance only task revealed a largely right lateralized network of fronto-parietal sites, consistent with previous research. However with the added demand of manipulation, activation became more parietal and bilateral. Post hoc analyses also revealed a significant positive correlation between the activated parietal signal in the maintenance plus manipulation task and the behavioural measure of accuracy.
Discussion
These findings emphasize the parietal contribution to the manipulation component of the task and delineate it from the maintenance component. It can be concluded that WM potentially draws on areas as needed by the task demands, in this situation with more attention directed to the visual spatial task recruiting more parietal activation across hemispheres.
Keywords:
fMRI,
n-back,
working memory,
parietal,
mental rotation
Conference:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Attention
Citation:
Lamp
G,
Alexander
B,
Laycock
R,
Crewther
DP and
Crewther
SG
(2013). Parietal Priorities: Maintenance versus Manipulation in Working Memory.
Conference Abstract:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00097
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Received:
25 Sep 2013;
Published Online:
25 Nov 2013.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Gemma Lamp, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, gemma.lamp@gmail.com