Neurophysiological Study of Orientation Discrimination in a Working Memory Task

• Published in: Human physiology Vol. 49; no. Suppl 1; pp. S1 - S12
• Main Authors: Mikhailova, E. S., Gerasimenko, N. Yu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Moscow Pleiades Publishing 01.12.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Human Physiology; Life Sciences; Mental task performance; Neocortex; Orientation behavior; Short term memory; Visual discrimination; Visual stimuli; Visual system; vision; orientation; working memory; visual cortex; human; evoked potentials
• ISSN: 0362-1197; 1608-3164
• DOI: 10.1134/S0362119723700524

Orientation memory is an important component of human visuospatial behavior, allowing one to store information relevant to this activity in an updated form. It is necessary to detect rapid displacements of spatial axes and to maintain the stability of the brain’s reference systems, in the coordinates of which the position in space is determined and motor reactions are programmed. In the literature, the aspect of orientation memory is represented primarily by functional MRI data on the role of early visual areas in retaining an accurate description of a stimulus supplemented by isolated information on the participation of individual subregions of the frontal neocortex. The organization of the stage of comparing the current orientation and the one stored in memory has not yet been the subject of systematic research, although this operation is critically important for detecting changes and forming rapid adaptive reactions. This emphasizes the need to use research methods with high temporal resolution. High-density recording of evoked activity has such capabilities, which makes it possible to assess the dynamics and topography of fast processes of comparison and discrimination of current orientations and orientations retained in short-term memory, as well as to determine the network of brain structures that support this operation using dipole modeling. We obtained new data important for understanding the mechanism by which the visual system identifies rapid changes in one of the basic characteristics of the visual environment.