The relationship between working memory storage and elevated activity as measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging
Open accessAbstract
Does the sustained, elevated neural activity observed during working memory tasks reflect the short-term retention of information? Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data of delayed recognition of visual motion in human participants were analyzed with two methods: a general linear model (GLM) and multivoxel pattern analysis. Although the GLM identified sustained, elevated delay-period activity in superior and lateral frontal cortex and in intraparietal sulcus, pattern classifiers were unable to recover trial-specific stimulus information from these delay-active regions. The converse-no sustained, elevated delay-period activity but successful classification of trial-specific stimulus information-was true of posterior visual regions, including area MT+ (which contains both middle temporal area and medial superior temporal area) and calcarine and pericalcarine cortex. In contrast to stimulus information, pattern classifiers were able to extract trial-specific task instruction-related information from frontal and parietal areas showing elevated delay-period activity. Thus, the elevated delay-period activity that is measured with fMRI may reflect processes other than the storage, per se, of trial-specific stimulus information. It may be that the short-term storage of stimulus information is represented in patterns of (statistically) "subthreshold" activity distributed across regions of low-level sensory cortex that univariate methods cannot detect.
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Frontoparietal regions create flexible stimulus representations that are in line with behavioral goals.
“Together, these results suggest complementary roles for early visual cortex and frontoparietal regions [30][31][32], whereby frontoparietal regions create flexible stimulus representations that are in line with behavioral goals [3,33].”
From Shared representations for working memory and mental imagery in early visual cortex (2013) · cites this paper as [3]
We and others did not find reliable encoding of stimulus-related information in nonvisual areas (prefrontal and parietal cortex) when training on perceptual input.
“Although we observed strong increases in activity in a specific set of regions in prefrontal and parietal cortex [28], we and others [3] did not find reliable encoding of stimulus-related information in these areas when training on perceptual input.”
From Shared representations for working memory and mental imagery in early visual cortex (2013) · cites this paper as [3]
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- Authors
- Riggall, A. C., & Postle, B. R.
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- ORCID
- Postle, Bradley R.
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2012-09-19
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 38
- Pages
- 12990-12998
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC3470886
- OpenAlex
- W1965367003
- Cited by
- 385
- References
- 61
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 25 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 43 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 35 · 2014: 32 · 2013: 23 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 14.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH064498)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- working memory, sustained neural activity, delay-period activity, multi-voxel pattern analysis, general linear model, MT, intraparietal sulcus, frontal cortex, parietal cortex, subthreshold activity
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Analysis of Variance, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Memory, Short-Term, Motion Perception, Oxygen, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Young Adult
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