Ren Zhiting, Zhang Yao, He Hong, Feng Qiuyang, Bi Taiyong, Qiu Jiang
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, China.
School of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2019 Jul 19;13:248. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00248. eCollection 2019.
In working memory (WM), the ability to concurrently integrate different types of information and to maintain or manipulate them promotes the flow of ongoing tasks. WM is a key component of normal human cognition. In this study, we applied a combined voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) analysis to investigate the relationship between the ability of object and spatial working memory (WM), and regional gray matter density (GMD), as well as intrinsic functional connectivity. The VBM analysis showed a positive correlation between the individual difference of object WM and GMD in the right middle occipital gyrus (MOG) and the left superior temporal gyrus (STG), which are responsible for coding object information and processing the shape of an object. The individual difference of the spatial WM was positively related to GMD in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) located in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), which confirmed that it is an important region for memory stores and maintains WM spatial representations. Further functional connectivity analysis revealed that the individual difference of object WM was significantly correlated with the rsFC of right intraparietal sulcus (IPS) - left postcentral gyrus (PostCG)/right precentral gyrus (PreCG)/left Supplementary Motor Area (SMA). While the capacity of spatial WM was significantly associated with the FC strength of the left dlPFC - left precuneus, right dlPFC - right MFG, and the left superior frontal sulcus (SFS) - left SMA/ right inferior parietal lobe (IPL). Our findings suggest that object WM is associated with the structure and functional organization of the brain regions involved in the ventral pathway (occipital - temporal regions) and the capacity of spatial WM is related to the dorsal pathway (frontal - parietal regions).
在工作记忆（WM）中，同时整合不同类型信息并维持或操控这些信息的能力促进了正在进行的任务流程。工作记忆是人类正常认知的关键组成部分。在本研究中，我们应用基于体素的形态测量学（VBM）和静息态功能连接（rsFC）相结合的分析方法，来探究客体和空间工作记忆（WM）能力与区域灰质密度（GMD）以及内在功能连接之间的关系。VBM分析显示，客体工作记忆的个体差异与右侧枕中回（MOG）和左侧颞上回（STG）的灰质密度呈正相关，这两个脑区负责对客体信息进行编码并处理客体形状。空间工作记忆的个体差异与位于背外侧前额叶皮层（dlPFC）的右侧额中回（MFG）的灰质密度呈正相关，这证实了该脑区是记忆存储和维持工作记忆空间表征的重要区域。进一步的功能连接分析表明，客体工作记忆的个体差异与右侧顶内沟（IPS）-左侧中央后回（PostCG）/右侧中央前回（PreCG）/左侧辅助运动区（SMA）的静息态功能连接显著相关。而空间工作记忆的能力则与左侧dlPFC-左侧楔前叶、右侧dlPFC-右侧额中回以及左侧额上沟（SFS）-左侧SMA/右侧顶下小叶（IPL）的功能连接强度显著相关。我们的研究结果表明，客体工作记忆与腹侧通路（枕叶-颞叶区域）中涉及的脑区结构和功能组织有关，而空间工作记忆的能力则与背侧通路（额叶-顶叶区域）有关。
