The effect of motivation on working memory: A role of medial orbitofrontal cortex
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1
Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Department of Neurophysiology, Poland
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2
Warsaw Medical University, Department of Neurosurgery, Poland
Although the impact of motivation on cognitive performance is well documented, the neural mechanisms of the influence of reward- and punishment-motivation on cognition remain poorly understood. In a recent paper [1] we hypothesized that the right and left orbitofrontal cortices (OFCs) are differentially involved in the punishing and rewarding aspects of motivational influence on executive functions. The present study was conducted to further evaluate the role of the OFC in the motivational modulation of cognition by examining the effects of focal lesions to the medial OFC on the performance on an incentive working memory task. Patients who had undergone surgery for an ACoA aneurysm and normal control subjects (C) participated in the study. The patients were subdivided into three groups: those with resection of the left (LGR+) or right (RGR+) posterior part of the gyrus rectus, and without such a resection (GR-). Participants performed a 2-back working memory task under three motivational conditions (reward, penalty, and no-incentive). The C group performed worse in the penalty condition and better in the reward condition, as compared to the no-incentive condition. Similar results were obtained for the GR- group. The RGR+ group performed better in both the penalty and reward conditions than in the no-incentive condition, whereas the performance of the LGR+ group did not depend on incentive manipulations. In other words, only the RGR+ group showed the enhancement of response accuracy in the penalty condition, and only in the LGR+ group the response accuracy was not enhanced in the reward condition. The results suggest that the right and left medial OFCs support the influence of punishment- and reward-motivation on working memory, respectively.
References
1. Szatkowska et al. 2008. Neurobiol Learn Mem 90,475-478.
Conference:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting, Rhodes Island, Greece, 13 Sep - 18 Sep, 2009.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster presentations
Citation:
Szatkowska
I,
Szymanska
O,
Marchewka
A and
Soluch
P
(2009). The effect of motivation on working memory: A role of medial orbitofrontal cortex.
Conference Abstract:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.08.2009.09.318
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Received:
15 Jun 2009;
Published Online:
15 Jun 2009.
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Correspondence:
Iwona Szatkowska, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Department of Neurophysiology, Granz, Poland, i.szatkowska@nencki.gov.pl