Development of Spatial and Verbal Working Memory Capacity in the Human Brain
Name
Thomason-2009-Development of Spatial and Verbal Working Memory Capacity in the Human Brain.pdf
Size
613.79 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
dcefac410d6f20a1f8f36fd279ae23b4
Author(s)
Thomason, Moriah E.
Race, Elizabeth
Burrows, Brittany
Glover, Gary H.
Gabrieli, John D. E.
Gabrieli, Susan
Date Issued
May 2010
Journal
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Publisher
MIT Press Journals
Citation
Thomason, Moriah E. et al. “Development of Spatial and Verbal Working Memory Capacity in the Human Brain.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 21.2 (2009): 316-332. © 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Version
Final published version
Abstract
A core aspect of working memory (WM) is the capacity to maintain goal-relevant information in mind, but little is known about how this capacity develops in the human brain. We compared brain activation, via fMRI, between children (ages 7–12 years) and adults (ages 20–29 years) performing tests of verbal and spatial WM with varying amounts (loads) of information to be maintained in WM. Children made disproportionately more errors than adults as WM load increased. Children and adults exhibited similar hemispheric asymmetry in activation, greater on the right for spatial WM and on the left for verbal WM. Children, however, failed to exhibit the same degree of increasing activation across WM loads as was exhibited by adults in multiple frontal and parietal cortical regions. Thus, children exhibited adult-like hemispheric specialization, but appeared immature in their ability to marshal the neural resources necessary to maintain large amounts of verbal or spatial information in WM.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2008.21028
