Horne Autumn, Ding Junhua, Schnur Tatiana T, Martin Randi C
Department of Psychological Sciences, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.
Department of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Brain Sci. 2022 Dec 22;13(1):19. doi: 10.3390/brainsci13010019.
Prior evidence suggests domain-specific working memory (WM) buffers for maintaining phonological (i.e., speech sound) and semantic (i.e., meaning) information. The phonological WM buffer’s proposed location is in the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG), whereas semantic WM has been related to the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and the angular gyrus (AG). However, less is known about the white matter correlates of phonological and semantic WM. We tested 45 individuals with left hemisphere brain damage on single word processing, phonological WM, and semantic WM tasks and obtained T1 and diffusion weighted neuroimaging. Virtual dissections were performed for each participants’ arcuate fasciculus (AF), inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), middle longitudinal fasciculus (MLF), and uncinate fasciculus (UF), which connect the proposed domain-specific WM buffers with perceptual or processing regions. The results showed that the left IFOF and the posterior segment of the AF were related to semantic WM performance. Phonological WM was related to both the left ILF and the whole AF. This work informs our understanding of the white matter correlates of WM, especially semantic WM, which has not previously been investigated. In addition, this work helps to adjudicate between theories of verbal WM, providing some evidence for separate pathways supporting phonological and semantic WM.
先前的证据表明，存在用于维持语音（即语音）和语义（即意义）信息的特定领域工作记忆（WM）缓冲器。语音WM缓冲器的假定位置在左侧缘上回（SMG），而语义WM则与左侧额下回（IFG）、额中回（MFG）和角回（AG）有关。然而，关于语音和语义WM的白质相关性，我们所知较少。我们对45名左半球脑损伤患者进行了单字处理、语音WM和语义WM任务测试，并获得了T1和扩散加权神经影像学数据。对每个参与者的弓状束（AF）、额枕下束（IFOF）、下纵束（ILF）、中纵束（MLF）和钩束（UF）进行了虚拟解剖，这些纤维束将假定的特定领域WM缓冲器与感知或处理区域连接起来。结果表明，左侧IFOF和AF的后段与语义WM表现有关。语音WM与左侧ILF和整个AF均有关。这项工作增进了我们对WM白质相关性的理解，尤其是此前尚未研究过的语义WM。此外，这项工作有助于在言语WM理论之间进行裁决，为支持语音和语义WM的独立通路提供了一些证据。
