Jonides J, Smith E E, Koeppe R A, Awh E, Minoshima S, Mintun M A
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109.
Nature. 1993 Jun 17;363(6430):623-5. doi: 10.1038/363623a0.
The concept of working memory is central to theories of human cognition because working memory is essential to such human skills as language comprehension and deductive reasoning. Working memory is thought to be composed of two parts, a set of buffers that temporarily store information in either a phonological or visuospatial form, and a central executive responsible for various computations such as mental arithmetic. Although most data on working memory come from behavioural studies of normal and brain-injured humans, there is evidence about its physiological basis from invasive studies of monkeys. Here we report positron emission tomography (PET) studies of regional cerebral blood flow in normal humans that reveal activation in right-hemisphere prefrontal, occipital, parietal and premotor cortices accompanying spatial working memory processes. These results begin to uncover the circuitry of a working memory system in humans.
工作记忆的概念是人类认知理论的核心，因为工作记忆对于诸如语言理解和演绎推理等人类技能至关重要。工作记忆被认为由两部分组成，一组以语音或视觉空间形式临时存储信息的缓冲器，以及负责各种计算（如心算）的中央执行系统。虽然关于工作记忆的大多数数据来自对正常人和脑损伤患者的行为研究，但也有来自对猴子的侵入性研究的关于其生理基础的证据。我们在此报告对正常人进行的正电子发射断层扫描（PET）研究，该研究揭示了在空间工作记忆过程中右半球前额叶、枕叶、顶叶和运动前皮质的激活。这些结果开始揭示人类工作记忆系统的神经回路。
