Functional activation of the human frontal cortex during the performance of verbal working memory tasks.

TLDR

PET measured regional cerebral blood flow while subjects performed a control counting task and two experimental verbal working memory tasks that required maintaining self‑generated or externally generated numbers. Both experimental tasks produced strong bilateral activation of the mid‑dorsolateral frontal cortex, but no additional activation was seen for self‑generated versus externally generated responses, confirming its role in mnemonic processing.

Abstract

Regional cerebral blood flow was measured with positron emission tomography during the performance of verbal working memory tasks. The same type of verbal response (i.e., reciting numbers) was required in the control and the two experimental tasks. In the control task, the subjects were required to count aloud. In the two experimental tasks, the subjects were required to maintain within working memory the numbers they generated (self-ordered task) or the numbers generated by the experimenter (externally ordered task). Examination of the difference in activation between these conditions revealed strong bilateral activation within the mid-dorsolateral frontal cortex during both experimental tasks. There was, however, no evidence of additional activation within the mid-dorsolateral frontal cortex when monitoring self-generated responses as compared with the monitoring of externally generated responses. These results provide evidence regarding the role of the mid-dorsolateral frontal cortex in mnemonic processing that are in agreement with recent findings from work with non-human primates.