Strategic resource allocation in the human brain supports cognitive coordination of object and spatial working memory.

ABSTRACT: The ability to integrate different types of information (e.g., object identity and spatial orientation) and maintain or manipulate them concurrently in working memory (WM) facilitates the flow of ongoing tasks and is essential for normal human cognition. Research shows that object and spatial information is maintained and manipulated in WM via separate pathways in the brain (object/ventral versus spatial/dorsal). How does the human brain coordinate the activity of different specialized systems to conjoin different types of information? Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate conjunction- versus single-task manipulation of object (compute average color blend) and spatial (compute intermediate angle) information in WM. Object WM was associated with ventral (inferior

SUBMITTER: Jackson MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3326378 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature