The Altered Brain Activation of Phonological Working Memory, Dual Tasking, and Distraction Among Participants With Adult ADHD and the Effect of the MAOA Polymorphism

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 240-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chih-Hung Ko ◽  
Tsyh-Jyi Hsieh ◽  
Peng-Wei Wang ◽  
Wei-Chen Lin ◽  
Cheng-Sheng Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Frontal Lobe ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Adult Adhd ◽  
Brain Activation ◽  
Monoamine Oxidase A ◽  
Dual Tasking ◽  
Phonological Working Memory ◽  
Pars Opercularis ◽  
The Brain

Objective: The present study aimed to reveal the brain correlates of phonological working memory (WM), dual tasking, and distraction in adult ADHD combined with the effect of polymorphisms of monoamine oxidase A ( MAOA rs1137070 Asp470Asp). Method: A total of 29 participants with adult ADHD and 21 controls were recruited. They completed 0-back and 2-back tasks, as wells as 2-back tasks with a dual-task effect or a distracting effect, during functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. Results: The brain activation of WM in the bilateral inferior frontal lobe, pars opercularis, was higher among the adult ADHD group. The genotype of MAOA significantly interacted with the ADHD effect in the left inferior frontal lobe, pars opercularis. Adults with ADHD had higher activation in the left lingual area in response to the dual-tasking effect. Conclusion: The MAOA polymorphism moderated the altered activation in pars opercularis for WM among adults with ADHD. The higher lingual gyrus activation might indicate that higher attention resources are demanded to sustain the dual-task function of adults with ADHD.

scholarly journals Brain Activation and Psychophysiologic Interaction in Association with a Phonological Working Memory Task

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Nazlim Yusoff ◽  
Hanani Abdul Manan ◽  
Siti Zamratol-Mai Sarah Mukari ◽  
Khairiah Abdul Hamid ◽  
Elizabeth A. Franz
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
Source Region ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Brain Activation ◽  
Phonological Working Memory ◽  
Babble Noise ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Brain

Brain activation within, and psychophysiologic interaction between, significantly activated regions in the brain obtained from a phonological working memory experiment on a single participant were studied. Given that working memory and speech processing are key functions of human behaviour, this type of investigation is of fundamental importance to our understanding of brain-behaviour relationships. The study objectives were to determine the areas that respond significantly to a phonological working memory task and to investigate the influence of babble noise on their activation and the psychophysiologic interactions (PPI) between the source region and those activated areas. Three conditions were used during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans which were working memory in quiet (WMQ), working memory in noise (WMN) and listening to babble noise (N). More voxels are activated in the right temporal lobe than in the left during N condition due to the non-speech stimulus. However, a higher mean stimulus efficacy (?) of the point of maximum intensity in the left temporal lobe causes its signal intensity to be higher than in the right temporal lobe. Both the WMQ and WMN conditions resulted in similar activated regions in the brain but with a higher number of activated voxels (NOV) during WMQ for the right hemispheric areas in association with the working memory task. This is due to the sensitivity of those regions in perceiving and performing the phonological working memory task in quiet to a level that actually exceeds the activation enhancement commonly associated with the performance of working memory task in noise. This is supported by the PPI results that performing the working memory task is less influenced by noise for that particular brain region.

scholarly journals Span, CRUNCH, and Beyond: Working Memory Capacity and the Aging Brain

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils J. Schneider-Garces ◽  
Brian A. Gordon ◽  
Carrie R. Brumback-Peltz ◽  
Eunsam Shin ◽  
Yukyung Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Neural Circuits ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Memory Search ◽  
Brain Activation ◽  
Aging Brain ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
The Brain

Neuroimaging data emphasize that older adults often show greater extent of brain activation than younger adults for similar objective levels of difficulty. A possible interpretation of this finding is that older adults need to recruit neuronal resources at lower loads than younger adults, leaving no resources for higher loads, and thus leading to performance decrements [Compensation-Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis; e.g., Reuter-Lorenz, P. A., & Cappell, K. A. Neurocognitive aging and the compensation hypothesis. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 177–182, 2008]. The Compensation-Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis leads to the prediction that activation differences between younger and older adults should disappear when task difficulty is made subjectively comparable. In a Sternberg memory search task, this can be achieved by assessing brain activity as a function of load relative to the individual's memory span, which declines with age. Specifically, we hypothesized a nonlinear relationship between load and both performance and brain activity and predicted that asymptotes in the brain activation function should correlate with performance asymptotes (corresponding to working memory span). The results suggest that age differences in brain activation can be largely attributed to individual variations in working memory span. Interestingly, the brain activation data show a sigmoid relationship with load. Results are discussed in terms of Cowan's [Cowan, N. The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87–114, 2001] model of working memory and theories of impaired inhibitory processes in aging.

scholarly journals Toward Objective Evaluation of Working Memory in Visualizations: A Case Study Using Pupillometry and a Dual-Task Paradigm

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lace Padilla ◽  
Spencer Castro ◽  
Q. Samuel Quinan ◽  
Ian Tanner Ruginski ◽  
Sarah Creem-Regehr
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Objective Evaluation ◽  
Task Completion ◽  
Dual Tasking ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Relative Differences

Cognitive science has established widely used and validated procedures for evaluating working memory in numerous applied domains, but surprisingly few studies have employed these methodologies to assess claims about the impacts of visualizations on working memory. The lack of information visualization research that uses validated procedures for measuring working memory may be due, in part, to the absence of cross-domain methodological guidance tailored explicitly to the unique needs of visualization research. This paper presents a set of clear, practical, and empirically validated methods for evaluating working memory during visualization tasks and provides readers with guidance in selecting an appropriate working memory evaluation paradigm. As a case study, we illustrate multiple methods for evaluating working memory in a visual-spatial aggregation task with geospatial data. The results show that the use of dual-task experimental designs (simultaneous performance of several tasks compared to single-task performance) and pupil dilation can reveal working memory demands associated with task difficulty and dual-tasking. In a dual-task experimental design, measures of task completion times and pupillometry revealed the working memory demands associated with both task difficulty and dual-tasking. Pupillometry demonstrated that participants’ pupils were significantly larger when they were completing a more difficult task and when multitasking. We propose that researchers interested in the relative differences in working memory between visualizations should consider a converging methods approach, where physiological measures and behavioral measures of working memory are employed to generate a rich evaluation of visualization effort.

scholarly journals A Hierarchical Modular Architecture for Embodied Cognition

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 177-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana H. Ballard ◽  
Dmitry Kit ◽  
Constantin A. Rothkopf ◽  
Brian Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The Body ◽  
Modular Architecture ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Dual Task Performance ◽  
Vantage Points ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Independent Tasks

Cognition can appear complex owing to the fact that the brain is capable of an enormous repertoire of behaviors. However, this complexity can be greatly reduced when constraints of time and space are taken into account. The brain is constrained by the body to limit its goal-directed behaviors to just a few independent tasks over the scale of 1–2 min, and can pursue only a very small number of independent agendas. These limitations have been characterized from a number of different vantage points such as attention, working memory and dual task performance. It may be possible that the disparate perspectives of all these methodologies can be unified if behaviors can be seen as modular and hierarchically organized. From this vantage point, cognition can be seen as having a central problem of scheduling behaviors to achieve short term goals. Thus dual-task paradigms can be seen as studying the concurrent management of simultaneous, competing agendas. Attention can be seen as focusing on the decision as to whether to interrupt the current agenda or persevere. Working memory can be seen as the bookkeeping necessary to manage the state of the current active agenda items.

scholarly journals Exploring the influence of temporal factors on age differences in working memory dual task costs

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rhodes ◽  
Jason M Doherty ◽  
Agnieszka J Jaroslawska ◽  
Alicia Forsberg ◽  
Clément Belletier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Previous Experiment ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Initial Finding ◽  
Dual Tasking ◽  
Adjustment Procedure ◽  
Task Effects ◽  
Other Information

Working memory is defined by many as the system that allows us to simultaneously store information over brief time periods while engaging in other information processing activities. In a previous study (Rhodes et al., 2019) we found that retention of serially presented letters was disrupted by the introduction of an arithmetic processing task during a 10 second delay period. Importantly, the magnitude of this dual task disruption increased with age from 18 to 81. The demands of each task were adjusted prior to dual task so that age differences did not reflect baseline differences in single task performance. Motivated by these findings, theories of working memory, and additional analyses of processing reaction times from this previous experiment, we report two experiments, using the same tasks and adjustment procedure, attempting to modulate the magnitude of age differences in dual task effects via manipulations focused on time for encoding to-be-remembered material. Providing a delay prior to processing activities, to facilitate switching between the two tasks, did not modulate age differences. Neither did separating the to-be-remembered material temporally, to allow for the creation of more distinct representations. These findings provide two replications of our initial finding and suggest that age differences in working memory dual tasking are not due to limitations in the speed of encoding.

scholarly journals Singing in the Brain

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 456-472
Author(s):  
Callula Killingly ◽  
Philippe Lacherez ◽  
Renata Meuter
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Sense Of Agency ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Intrusive Thought ◽  
Dual Task Paradigm ◽  
Unconscious Desire ◽  
The Brain

Music that gets “stuck” in the head is commonly conceptualized as an intrusive “thought”; however, we argue that this experience is better characterized as automatic mental singing without an accompanying sense of agency. In two experiments, a dual-task paradigm was employed, in which participants undertook a phonological task once while hearing music, and then again in silence following its presentation. We predicted that the music would be maintained in working memory, interfering with the task. Experiment 1 (N = 30) used songs predicted to be more or less catchy; half of the sample heard truncated versions. Performance was indeed poorer following catchier songs, particularly if the songs were unfinished. Moreover, the effect was stronger for songs rated higher in terms of the desire to sing along. Experiment 2 (N = 50) replicated the effect using songs with which the participants felt compelled to sing along. Additionally, results from a lexical decision task indicated that many participants’ keystrokes synchronized with the tempo of the song just heard. Together, these findings suggest that an earworm results from an unconscious desire to sing along to a familiar song.

scholarly journals Head-Down-Tilt Bed Rest With Elevated CO2: Effects of a Pilot Spaceflight Analog on Neural Function and Performance During a Cognitive-Motor Dual Task

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aditya D. Mahadevan ◽  
Kathleen E. Hupfeld ◽  
Jessica K. Lee ◽  
Yiri E. De Dios ◽  
Igor S. Kofman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Space Station ◽  
Motor Task ◽  
Brain Activation ◽  
Bed Rest ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Neural Function ◽  
Dual Tasking

Spaceflight has widespread effects on human performance, including on the ability to dual task. Here, we examine how a spaceflight analog comprising 30 days of head-down-tilt bed rest (HDBR) combined with 0.5% ambient CO2 (HDBR + CO2) influences performance and functional activity of the brain during single and dual tasking of a cognitive and a motor task. The addition of CO2 to HDBR is thought to better mimic the conditions aboard the International Space Station. Participants completed three tasks: (1) COUNT: counting the number of times an oddball stimulus was presented among distractors; (2) TAP: tapping one of two buttons in response to a visual cue; and (3) DUAL: performing both tasks concurrently. Eleven participants (six males) underwent functional MRI (fMRI) while performing these tasks at six time points: twice before HDBR + CO2, twice during HDBR + CO2, and twice after HDBR + CO2. Behavioral measures included reaction time, standard error of reaction time, and tapping accuracy during the TAP and DUAL tasks, and the dual task cost (DTCost) of each of these measures. We also quantified DTCost of fMRI brain activation. In our previous HDBR study of 13 participants (with atmospheric CO2), subjects experienced TAP accuracy improvements during bed rest, whereas TAP accuracy declined while in the current study of HDBR + CO2. In the HDBR + CO2 subjects, we identified a region in the superior frontal gyrus that showed decreased DTCost of brain activation while in HDBR + CO2, and recovered back to baseline levels before the completion of bed rest. Compared to HDBR alone, we found different patterns of brain activation change with HDBR + CO2. HDBR + CO2 subjects had increased DTCost in the middle temporal gyrus whereas HDBR subjects had decreased DTCost in the same area. Five of the HDBR + CO2 subjects developed signs of spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS). These subjects exhibited lower baseline dual task activation and higher slopes of change during HDBR + CO2 than subjects with no signs of SANS. Collectively, this pilot study provides insight into the additional and/or interactive effects of CO2 levels during HDBR, and information regarding the impacts of this spaceflight analog environment on the neural correlates of dual tasking.

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