JOURNAL ARTICLE
RESEARCH SUPPORT, N.I.H., EXTRAMURAL
RESEARCH SUPPORT, NON-U.S. GOV'T
RESEARCH SUPPORT, U.S. GOV'T, NON-P.H.S.
Add like
Add dislike
Add to saved papers

Hemispheric asymmetry in visuotopic posterior parietal cortex emerges with visual short-term memory load.

Journal of Neuroscience 2010 September 23
Visual short-term memory (VSTM) briefly maintains a limited sampling from the visual world. Activity in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) tightly correlates with the number of items stored in VSTM. This activity may occur in or near to multiple distinct visuotopically mapped cortical areas that have been identified in IPS. To understand the topographic and spatial properties of VSTM, we investigated VSTM activity in visuotopic IPS regions using functional magnetic resonance imaging. VSTM drove areas IPS0-2, but largely spared IPS3-4. Under visual stimulation, these areas in both hemispheres code the contralateral visual hemifield. In contrast to the hemispheric symmetry observed with visual stimulation, an asymmetry emerged during VSTM with increasing memory load. The left hemisphere exhibited load-dependent activity only for contralateral memory items; right hemisphere activity reflected VSTM load regardless of visual-field location. Our findings demonstrate that VSTM induces a switch in spatial representation in right hemisphere IPS from contralateral to full-field coding. The load dependence of right hemisphere effects argues that memory-dependent and/or attention-dependent processes drive this change in spatial processing. This offers a novel means for investigating spatial-processing impairments in hemispatial neglect.

Full text links

We have located links that may give you full text access.
Can't access the paper?
Try logging in through your university/institutional subscription. For a smoother one-click institutional access experience, please use our mobile app.

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

Mobile app image

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

All material on this website is protected by copyright, Copyright © 1994-2024 by WebMD LLC.
This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties.

By using this service, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Your Privacy Choices Toggle icon

You can now claim free CME credits for this literature searchClaim now

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app