FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY DURING WORKING MEMORY TASK PERFORMANCE
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Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, India
Background: Working memory (WM) is a cognitive memory buffer and an imperative process for reasoning, comprehension, learning and memory updating and it is liable for the transitory holding and processing of new and previously stored information. The aim of this study is to visualize the functional connectivity between different electroencephalograph (EEG) electrode locations while performing working memory task.
Methods: The working memory capacity of twenty random, healthy adult participants was evaluated with the help of Operation Span (OSPAN) task. The brain activity was measured using EEG and the variations in EEG frequency bands were evaluated for distinguishing an internally generated form of intended encoding depicted by alpha desynchronization and theta synchronization. The functional connectivity of different EEG frequency bands was visualized using the correlation matrix for two different conditions – task performance and rest. The highly correlated regions were also depicted visually by correlogram.
Results: The functional connectivity of the alpha and theta bands during task performance show that pre-frontal (Fp1 and Fp2) and frontal (F3, F4, F7 and F8) electrode locations are strongly connected (r=0.9, p<0.001) indicating that these electrode locations are mainly involved in working memory. Also, on comparing the functional connectivity during the task performance with that of the rest period significant difference was noted in the visualization. Highly coherent pre-frontal and frontal electrode locations (Fp1, Fp2, F3, F4, F7, F8) during task performance showed reduced coherence during the rest period indicating that those electrode locations were not actively involved in the rest condition. Moreover, significantly distinguished connectivities revealed different topographies in different frequency bands.
Conclusion: Based on the results, the study concludes that the pre-frontal and frontal regions are mainly involved during the working memory task performance. Highly correlated functional connectivity was established at the beta band during task performance whereas highly correlated functional connectivity was established at the alpha and theta bands during the rest condition.
Keywords:
Electroencephalography,
Desynchronization,
synchronization,
OSPAN task,
working memory,
connectivity,
Cognitive Memory
Conference:
Neuroinformatics 2016, Reading, United Kingdom, 3 Sep - 4 Sep, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Visualization
Citation:
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(2016). FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY DURING WORKING MEMORY TASK PERFORMANCE.
Front. Neuroinform.
Conference Abstract:
Neuroinformatics 2016.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fninf.2016.20.00091
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Received:
24 Jul 2016;
Published Online:
01 Sep 2016.
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Correspondence:
Ms. Sriranjani S, Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Chennai, Non-US or Canadian Address, 600059, India, sriranjani.ssn@gmail.com