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Working Memory Training for Older Participants: A Control Group Training Regimen and Initial Intellectual Functioning Assessment
Published on: September 20, 2020
Development of spatial and verbal working memory capacity in the human brain
Moriah E Thomason1, Elizabeth Race, Brittany Burrows
1Department of Psychology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305-2130, USA. moriah@stanford.edu
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
|May 31, 2008
Summary
Children show adult-like brain specialization for working memory (WM) but struggle with increased information loads. Their brains activate less than adults
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
Background:
- Working memory (WM) is crucial for maintaining goal-relevant information.
- Developmental trajectory of working memory capacity in the human brain remains poorly understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate developmental differences in brain activation during verbal and spatial working memory tasks.
- To compare how children and adults recruit neural resources under varying working memory loads.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activation.
- Participants included children (7-12 years) and adults (20-29 years).
- Tasks involved verbal and spatial working memory at different information loads.
Main Results:
- Children made more errors than adults as working memory load increased.
- Both groups showed similar hemispheric asymmetry for verbal (left) and spatial (right) WM.
- Children showed less increasing brain activation with higher WM loads compared to adults, particularly in frontal and parietal regions.
Conclusions:
- Children exhibit adult-like hemispheric specialization for working memory.
- Children's neural resource recruitment for working memory appears immature compared to adults.
- Developmental immaturity in marshaling neural resources may underlie capacity limitations in children's working memory.
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