Premium
Time‐dependent hierarchical organization of spatial working memory: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study
Author(s) -
Nyffeler Thomas,
PierrotDeseilligny Charles,
Felblinger Jaques,
Mosimann Urs P.,
Hess Christian W.,
Müri René M.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
european journal of neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.346
H-Index - 206
eISSN - 1460-9568
pISSN - 0953-816X
DOI - 10.1046/j.1460-9568.2002.02252.x
Subject(s) - memorization , psychology , working memory , transcranial magnetic stimulation , neuroscience , dorsolateral prefrontal cortex , stimulation , audiology , interstimulus interval , prefrontal cortex , cognitive psychology , cognition , medicine
The performance of memory‐guided saccades with two different delays (3 and 30 s of memorization) was studied in seven healthy subjects. Double‐pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (dTMS) with an interstimulus interval of 100 ms was applied over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) early (1 s after target presentation) and late (28 s after target presentation). Early stimulation significantly increased in both delays the percentage of error in amplitude (PEA) of contralateral memory‐guided saccades compared to the control experiment without stimulation. dTMS applied late in the delay had no significant effect on PEA. Furthermore, we found a significantly smaller effect of early stimulation in the long‐delay paradigm. These results suggest a time‐dependent hierarchical organization of the spatial working memory with a functional dominance of DLPFC during the early memorization, independent from the memorization delay. For a long memorization delay, however, working memory seems to have an additional, DLPFC‐independent component.