Uncoupling cognitive workload and prefrontal cortical physiology: A PET rCBF study

被引:111
作者
Goldberg, TE [1 ]
Berman, KF [1 ]
Fleming, K [1 ]
Ostrem, J [1 ]
Van Horn, JD [1 ]
Esposito, G [1 ]
Mattay, VS [1 ]
Gold, JM [1 ]
Weinberger, DR [1 ]
机构
[1] St Elizabeth Hosp, Ctr Neurosci, NIMH,Intramural Res Program, Clin Brain Disorders Branch,NIH, Washington, DC 20032 USA
关键词
PET; cognition; humans; working memory; dual task; frontal lobe;
D O I
10.1006/nimg.1998.0338
中图分类号
Q189 [神经科学];
学科分类号
071006 ;
摘要
Working memory is a fundamental cognitive building block, involved in the short-term maintenance and transformation of information. In neuropsychological studies, working memory has been shown to be of limited capacity; however, the neurophysiological concomitants of this capacity limitation have not been explored. In this study we used the [O-15]water PET rCBF technique and statistical parametric mapping to examine normal subjects while they performed two cognitive basks, both individually and simultaneously, One task was the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, a complex reasoning task involving working memory, and the other was a rapidly paced auditory verbal shadowing task. When both tasks were performed simultaneously, there were significant decrements in performance compared with the individual task performance scores, indicating that cognitive workload had been increased. Analysis of the rCBF maps showed that when the two tasks were performed together, in contrast to when they were performed separately, there was less prefrontal activation. These results suggest that increases in cognitive workload do not necessarily recruit and then sustain cortical neurophysiological resources to a maximum, but rather may actually be accompanied by a diminution in cortical activity. (C) 1998 Academic Press.
引用
收藏
页码:296 / 303
页数:8
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