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Human parietal cortex lesions impact the precision of spatial working memory
Wayne E Mackey1, Orrin Devinsky2, Werner K Doyle3
1Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York;
Journal of Neurophysiology
|June 17, 2016
Summary
Damage to specific parietal cortex areas impairs working memory (WM). Lesioned patients showed deficits in memory-guided saccades but not visually guided ones, confirming the role of these regions in spatial WM.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Systems Neuroscience
Background:
- Working memory (WM) relies on persistent neural activity.
- Topographically organized maps in the dorsal parietal cortex show persistent, spatially selective activity during location-based WM.
- The causal role of these parietal subregions in human WM is not yet established.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the necessity of topographically organized areas in the human parietal cortex for working memory.
- To establish a causal link between specific parietal cortex regions and WM function.
Main Methods:
- Compared performance on a memory-guided saccade (MGS) task and a visually guided saccade (VGS) task between patients with parietal cortex lesions and control participants.
- The MGS task assessed WM precision, while the VGS task controlled for general spatial and visuomotor deficits.
Main Results:
- Patients with parietal cortex lesions exhibited significantly slower and less accurate memory-guided saccades compared to controls.
- Visually guided saccades were unaffected in patients, indicating preserved general visual and motor functions.
- These findings demonstrate a causal role for topographic parietal areas in WM.
Conclusions:
- Topographic areas within the human parietal cortex are causally necessary for working memory.
- This study provides crucial evidence for the neural mechanisms underlying working memory, specifically highlighting the role of the parietal cortex.
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