The Role of the Prefrontal Cortex in the Maintenance of Verbal Working Memory:An Event-related fMRI Study / 实用放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the role of prefrontal cortex in maintenance of working memory(WM)using event-related functional MRI(ER-fMRI).Methods Twenty healthy subjects completed a relative lower,high load version of the sternberg item recognition task during ER-fMRI.The brain areas showing activity on average across the two loads for maintenance phase were obtained with group analysis.Load dependent activity was identified with inter-group analysis.Results The maintenance phase were relevant to the activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex(DLPFC),ventrolateral prefrontal cortex(VLPFC),parietal lobe,supplementary motor area(SMA)and premotor cortex(PMA).Brain regions including VLPFC showed increased activation for high load level.Conclusion Functional difference but not anatomic difference between maintenance and manipulation in brain may be exist.