The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is an area of the brain essential for cognitive processes such as visual working memory. Nearly all previous working memory studies in the prefrontal cortex, especially in animal models, have used subjects that were highly trained in behavioral tasks. Very little is known about the effects of this training on the prefrontal cortex and how native working memory responses are altered due to the training paradigm. The experiments proposed will study the properties of the anterior and posterior prefrontal cortex divisions prior to and following mastery of visuospatial working memory tasks in order to determine the neurophysiological structure of the prefrontal cortex during these time points. Similarly, the experiments will also investigate the properties of the working memory capacity limit for incoming visuospatial stimuli prior to and following training in a multiple-stimulus task. The results from these experiments will provide information about the processing of visual working memory in the brain and will provide insights on working memory training strategies in neurological disorders such as stroke as well in conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Working memory training has been used in recent years to treat conditions like stroke and Attention-Deficit- Hyperactive-Disorder. The proposed experiments will determine the changes in one of the regions of the brain that is active during working memory tasks following this training process. We will compare neuronal responses in the prefrontal cortex before and following training to spatial location, color, and multiple stimul to examine the effects that training in a working memory task may induce in the anterior and posterior portions of this cortical region.
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| Riley, Mitchell R; Qi, Xue-Lian; Constantinidis, Christos (2017) Functional specialization of areas along the anterior-posterior axis of the primate prefrontal cortex. Cereb Cortex 27:3683-3697 |
| Tang, Hua; Riley, Mitchell R; Constantinidis, Christos (2017) Lateralization of Executive Function: Working Memory Advantage for Same Hemifield Stimuli in the Monkey. Front Neurosci 11:532 |
| Riley, Mitchell R; Constantinidis, Christos (2015) Role of Prefrontal Persistent Activity in Working Memory. Front Syst Neurosci 9:181 |
