Intracortical Directed Connectivity for Information Retention in Visual–Spatial Working Memory

• Published in: Doklady. Biological sciences Vol. 500; no. 1; pp. 133 - 137
• Main Authors: Mikhailova, E. S., Kurgansky, A. V., Nushtaeva, R. A., Gerasimenko, N. Yu, Kushnir, A. B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Moscow Pleiades Publishing 01.09.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomedical and Life Sciences; Brain; Cortex (frontal); EEG; Electroencephalography; Evolutionary Biology; Frequency dependence; Frontal Lobe; Hemispheric laterality; Life Sciences; Memory; Memory, Short-Term; Mental task performance; Neural networks; Plant Sciences; Short term memory; Spatial distribution; Spatial Memory; Visual system; Young adults; directed coherence; EEG rhythms; working memory; human subject; orientation selectivity
• ISSN: 0012-4966; 1608-3105; 1608-3105
• DOI: 10.1134/S0012496621050070

A group of 27 healthy young adults solved a task involving the working memory (WM) activation, consisting of the comparison between the spatial orientations of two sequentially presented square-wave luminance gratings. We investigated the effective (directed) connectivity patterns between the frontal and postcentral cortical regions related to the visual system. The connectivity was assessed using vector autoregression modeling of EEG. It was shown that the strength of the top-down right-hemispheric connectivity patterns directed from the frontal cortex to the visual areas in θ frequency was significantly lower at the stage of stimulus retention in the WM than at the stage of stimulus anticipation. On the contrary, in the α band the descending influences were slightly more intense. The results of the study showed the frequency-dependent dynamics of the descending influences of the frontal cortex on visual areas and confirm that the frontal cortex plays the role of a controlling and modulating center in the brain system underlying WM.