Activation of left lingual gyrus related to working memory for schematic facesстатьяТезисы
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Дата последнего поиска статьи во внешних источниках: 27 мая 2015 г.
Аннотация:Background: We studied brain activity related to category-specific visual working memory. Methods: Working memory testing of 29 subjects (mean age 25.5 years old) consisted of two series, which differed in the level of difficulty (0- and 1-back tasks), and control task - passive observation of the same stimuli. Presented stimuli were square patterns 9*9 of grey and black squares set in three types of configurations (16 variations each) – schematic faces, letters and geometric figures. Each part of the test included 3 blocks of 120 stimuli (blocks of ‘faces’, ‘letters’ and ‘figures’). During the tests EEG (21 channels, monopolar) was registered. We calculated averaged ERPs of all subjects for each part of the test and stimuli type. Each individual ERP was presented as a number of equivalent dipole sources (two-dipole model, dipole coefficient > 0.95). The amount of dipole sources, located in each of the brain structures, according to Talairach Atlas labels, was calculated for each ERP for 0-500 ms post stimulus. This allowed to further evaluate the probability of difference of the amount of dipole sources between each stimuli and task type (Student’s t-test, p < 0.05). Results: The activity of left lingual gyrus is significantly higher during memorizing faces (both for 0- and 1-back tasks) than during memorizing letters and geometric figures. On the other hand, the activity of right lingual gyrus was found in passive observation of geometric figures but not in perception of faces and letters. Discussion and conclusions: The fact, that left lingual gyrus is activated stronger during memorizing visual stimuli while the right one activates during passive perception of the same stimuli, may indicate functional hemispheric differentiation of this brain structure. It can generally be suggested, that the activity of left lingual gyrus occurs during memorizing visual information because lingual gyrus links fusiform and parahippocampal gyri and therefore processes information about complex visual stimuli, discriminating their basic characteristics, which are significant for memorizing and consequent recognition. Moreover, the highest activity of left lingual gyrus is observed during memorizing and maintaining the images of faces, which can point to a certain specialization of this brain region in the processing of faces. The obtained results correspond with the findings of McCarthy et al. (1999), which state that some regions of ventral occipitotemporal cortex, including lingual gyrus, are specifically related to the processing of information about parts of the human face.