Xie Yuanjun, Feng Zhengquan, Xu Yuanyuan, Bian Chen, Li Min
The department of military psychology, College of Psychology of the Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China.
The Faculty of Bioscience Engineering of the Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China.
Neurosci Lett. 2016 Oct 28;633:220-226. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2016.09.047. Epub 2016 Sep 28.
A putative functional role for alpha oscillations in working memory remains controversial. However, recent evidence suggests that such oscillation may reflect distinct phases of working memory processing. The present study investigated alpha band (8-13Hz) activity during the maintenance stage of working memory using a modified Sternberg working memory task. Our results reveal that alpha power was concentrated primarily in the occipital cortex and was decreased during the early stage of maintenance (0-600ms), and subsequently increased during the later stage of maintenance (1000-1600ms). We suggest that reduced alpha power may be involved in focused attention during the working memory maintenance, whereas increased alpha power may reflect suppression of visual stimuli to facilitate internal processing related to the task. This interpretation is generally consistent with recent reports suggesting that variations in alpha power are associated with the representation and processing of information in the discrete time intervals during the working memory maintenance.
α振荡在工作记忆中的假定功能作用仍存在争议。然而，最近的证据表明，这种振荡可能反映了工作记忆处理的不同阶段。本研究使用改良的斯特恩伯格工作记忆任务，调查了工作记忆维持阶段的α波段（8-13Hz）活动。我们的结果显示，α功率主要集中在枕叶皮层，在维持的早期阶段（0-600毫秒）降低，随后在维持的后期阶段（1000-1600毫秒）增加。我们认为，α功率降低可能与工作记忆维持期间的集中注意力有关，而α功率增加可能反映了对视觉刺激的抑制，以促进与任务相关的内部处理。这一解释总体上与最近的报告一致，这些报告表明，α功率的变化与工作记忆维持期间离散时间间隔内信息的表征和处理有关。
