Neuropsychological Visuo-Spatial Working Memory Tests Performance and Anatomical Characteristics of Hippocampi, Caudate Nuclei and Cingulate Cortex Regionsтезисы доклада
Дата последнего поиска статьи во внешних источниках: 28 мая 2015 г.
Место издания:International Neuropsychological Society Amsterdam, Netherlands
Первая страница:94
Последняя страница:94
Аннотация:Objective : We studied possible relations between the sizes of several brain structures (hippocampus, caudate nucleus (CN), cingulate cortex) and different visual and visuo-spatial working memory (WM) characteristics.
Participants and Methods: 43 right-handed females (mean age – 60.4 years old) participated in the study. We measured hippocampus and CN volumes (in mm3) in both hemispheres with magnetic resonance morphometric analysis. We also calculated absolute square surfaces (in mm2) of three cingulate cortex regions – anterior (Brodmann area (BA) 24 and BA 33; ACC), posterior ventral (BA 23; vPCC), posterior dorsal (BA 31; dPCC) areas. Visual and visuo-spatial WM characteristics (memory capacity, permanency and the amount of different memory errors) were assessed by Luria's neuropsychological tests modified by J. Glozman (1999). We calculated non-parametric correlations (Spearman, p < .05) between individual visuo-spatial WM characteristics and morphometrical data.
Results : Visual WM capacity correlates negatively with left vPCC (r=-.32) and dPCC (r=-.30) size. Increased size of right dPCC is related to the decreased amount of sequence errors in visuo-spatial WM tests (r=-.31), while right ACC size correlates positively with the amount of contamination errors in visual WM tests (r=0.33). Right CN volume correlates positively with visual WM permanency (r=0.31) and negatively with the amount of visual contamination errors (r=-.33). Increased left hippocampus volume is related to better visuo-spatial WM permanency (r=.40).
Conclusions : According to the obtained data, increased volume of right CN is related to the decreased influence of the interfering stimuli on the visuo-spatial information maintenance in the WM. Increased volume of the left hippocampus correlates with increased permanency of visuo-spatial information maintenance. We can also hypothesize that cingulate cortex modulates the maintenance process by filtering out irrelevant visuo-spatial information and amplifying the relevant.