Differential Anterior Prefrontal Activation during the Recognition Stage of a Spatial Working Memory Task
Abstract
Neuroimaging studies commonly show widespread activations in the prefrontal cortex during various forms of working memory and long-term memory tasks. However, the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC, Brodmann area 10) has been mainly associated with retrieval in episodic memory, and its role in working memory is less clear. We conducted an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study to examine brain activations in relation to recognition in a spatial delayed-recognition task. Similar to the results from previous findings, several frontal areas were strongly activated during the recognition phase of the task, including the aPFC, the lateral PFC and the anterior cingulate cortex. Although the aPFC was more active during the recognition phase, it was also active during the delay phase of the spatial working memory task. In addition, the aPFC showed greater activity in response to negative probes (non-targets) than to positive probes (targets). While our analyses focused on examining signal changes in the aPFC, other prefrontal regions showed similar effects and none of the areas were more active in response to the positive probes than to the negative probes. Our findings support the conclusion that the aPFC is involved in working memory and particularly in processes that distinguish target and non-target stimuli during recognition.
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The mature mesoprefrontal system is involved in attention, behavioral flexibility, action planning, sustainability of motivational and affective states, working memory and memory consolidation, mediated in parallel by catecholaminergic pathways.
“Eventually, the mature mesoprefrontal system is involved in attention, behavioral flexibility, action planning, sustainability of motivational and affective states, working memory and memory consolidation which is mediated in parallel by catecholaminergic pathways [169, 174–178].”
From Development of prefrontal cortex (2022) · cites this paper as [176]
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Development of prefrontal cortex
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- Authors
- Leung, H.-C., Gore, J. C., & Goldman-Rakic, P. S.
- Affiliations
- State University of New York (US)
- Vanderbilt University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Leung, H.-C.
- ORCID
- Gore, J.C.
- Venue
- Cerebral Cortex
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2005-02-09
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1742-1749
- ISSN
- 1047-3211 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2199
- OpenAlex
- W2098508288
- Semantic Scholar
- 778ded26dc9f45f330bb2e21cc5655572a7c514d
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 1.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cerebral Cortex (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- State University of New York
- National Institutes of Health (11794, MH30929)
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH 44866, MH38546, MH30929-22, P50MH044866)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS 33332, R01NS033332)
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (R01EB000461, EB 00461)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Keywords
- anterior prefrontal cortex, spatial working memory, recognition memory, lateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, probe detection, episodic memory retrieval
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Discrimination Learning, Evoked Potentials, Visual, Female, Humans, Male, Memory, Short-Term, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Photic Stimulation, Space Perception, Task Performance and Analysis, Prefrontal Cortex
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