Spatio-visual working memory effectiveness and depression levels after pharmacological therapy with ssri - preliminary study

IntroductionWorking memory dysfunctions are observed in patients with recurrent depressive disorders. These deficits exert negative effects not only on psychological test performance levels but also on the capacity of affected patients to cope with everyday life situations, as well as on decreased remission levels.AimThe goal of the study was to identify possible associations between spatio-visual working memory, evaluated on admission, with the remission degree, assessed after 8-week pharmacotherapy with SSRI in a group of patients with diagnosed depression.Methods141 subjects were examined (patients with depressive disorders, DD: n = 86, healthy subjects, CG: n = 55). Trail Making Test by Reitan (TMT) was used.ResultsCG obtained higher results vs. DD-I patients (the evaluation started on the therapy onset) in TMT A/time (p = 0.09), TMT B/time (p = 0.009). CG demonstrated better results than DD-II patients (following eight weeks of pharmacological treatment) in TMT A (p = 0.11), TMT B (p = 0.85). Compared to DD-I group, DD-II group achieved better results in TMT A (p < 0.001) and TMT B (p < 0.001). The lowest performance levels in TMT A and TMT B may have been related to the highest depression levels after pharmacological treatment.Conclusions1.Depressive disorders are associated with deteriorated efficiency of visual working memory.2.Antidepressant treatment resulted in improved of visual working memory.3.The better performance in TMT on the first day of treatment may have influenced the noted reduction in severity of depressive symptoms after treatment with SSRI.

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Visual working memory representations in visual and parietal cortex do not remap after eye movements

10.1101/747329 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Tao He ◽

Matthias Ekman ◽

Annelinde R.E. Vandenbroucke ◽

Floris P. de Lange

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Visual Cortex ◽

Eye Movements ◽

Visual Field ◽

Visual System ◽

Visual Working Memory ◽

Parietal Cortex ◽

List Type ◽

Early Visual Cortex

ABSTRACTIt has been suggested that our visual system does not only process stimuli that are directly available to our eyes, but also has a role in maintaining information in VWM over a period of seconds. It remains unclear however what happens to VWM representations in the visual system when we make saccades. Here, we tested the hypothesis that VWM representations are remapped within the visual system after making saccades. We directly compared the content of VWM for saccade and no-saccade conditions using MVPA of delay-related activity measured with fMRI. We found that when participants did not make a saccade, VWM representations were robustly present in contralateral early visual cortex. When making a saccade, VWM representations degraded in contralateral V1-V3 after the saccade shifted the location of the remembered grating to the opposite visual field. However, contrary to our hypothesis we found no evidence for the representations of the remembered grating at the saccadic target location in the opposite visual field, suggesting that there is no evidence for remapping of VWM in early visual cortex. Interestingly, IPS showed persistent VWM representations in both the saccade and no-saccade condition. Together, our results indicate that VWM representations in early visual cortex are not remapped across eye movements, potentially limiting the role of early visual cortex in VWM storage.HighlightsVisual working memory (VWM) representations do not remap after making saccadesEye movement degrade VWM representations in early visual cortex, limiting the role of early visual cortex in VWM storageParietal cortex shows persistent VWM representations across saccades

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