Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Hemodynamic Changes in the Human Lateral Prefrontal Cortex During Working Memory Tasks

摘要

Although most agree that the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a critical role in working memory (WM), the localizations of its central executive (CE) and two slave systems are still subject to debate. Both the executive control and active maintenance of stored information are necessary for proper WM performance. It is supposed that regional brain activation attributed to the executive control is sustained throughout the task, while that related to the active maintenance may vary with time. Therefore, it is expected that dynamic recording of changes in regional cerebral flow (rCBF) associated with the lateral PFC can help improve our understanding of the organization of WM. Using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), we examined the spatiotemporal changes in oxy-Hb, an indicator of changes in rCBF, during two WM tasks having differing degrees of CE involvement.