Linden David E J
Wolfson Centre of Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, University of Wales Bangor, North Wales Clinical School, Bangor, Wales.
Neuroscientist. 2007 Jun;13(3):257-67. doi: 10.1177/1073858406298480.
Working memory and short-term memory are closely related in their cognitive architecture, capacity limitations, and functional neuroanatomy, which only partly overlap with those of long-term memory. The author reviews the functional neuroimaging literature on the commonalities and differences between working memory and short-term memory and the interplay of areas with modality-specific and supramodal representations in the brain networks supporting these fundamental cognitive processes. Sensory stores in the visual, auditory, and somatosensory cortex play a role in short-term memory, but supramodal parietal and frontal areas are often recruited as well. Classical working memory operations such as manipulation, protection against interference, or updating almost certainly require at least some degree of prefrontal support, but many pure maintenance tasks involve these areas as well. Although it seems that activity shifts from more posterior regions during encoding to more anterior regions during delay, some studies reported sustained delay activity in sensory areas as well. This spatiotemporal complexity of the short-term memory/working memory networks is mirrored in the activation patterns that may explain capacity constraints, which, although most prominent in the parietal cortex, seem to be pervasive across sensory and premotor areas. Finally, the author highlights open questions for cognitive neuroscience research of working memory, such as that of the mechanisms for integrating different types of content (binding) or those providing the link to long-term memory.
工作记忆和短期记忆在认知结构、容量限制和功能性神经解剖学方面密切相关，它们与长期记忆仅有部分重叠。作者回顾了关于工作记忆和短期记忆之间异同的功能性神经影像学文献，以及在支持这些基本认知过程的脑网络中具有模态特异性和超模态表征的区域之间的相互作用。视觉、听觉和体感皮层中的感觉存储在短期记忆中起作用，但超模态顶叶和额叶区域也经常被激活。诸如操作、防止干扰或更新等经典工作记忆操作几乎肯定至少需要一定程度的前额叶支持，但许多纯粹的维持任务也涉及这些区域。尽管在编码过程中活动似乎从更靠后的区域转移到延迟过程中更靠前的区域，但一些研究也报告了感觉区域中持续的延迟活动。短期记忆/工作记忆网络的这种时空复杂性反映在可能解释容量限制的激活模式中，容量限制虽然在顶叶皮层最为突出，但似乎在感觉和运动前区普遍存在。最后，作者强调了工作记忆认知神经科学研究中的开放性问题，例如整合不同类型内容（绑定）的机制问题或那些提供与长期记忆联系的机制问题。
