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A Brain System for Auditory Working Memory
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

A Brain System for Auditory Working Memory

Sukhbinder Kumar, Sabine Joseph, Phillip E Gander, Nicolas Barascud, Andrea R Halpern and Timothy D Griffiths
The Journal of neuroscience, Vol.36(16), pp.4492-4505
04/20/2016
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4341-14.2016
PMCID: PMC4837683
PMID: 27098693
url
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4341-14.2016View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

The brain basis for auditory working memory, the process of actively maintaining sounds in memory over short periods of time, is controversial. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in human participants, we demonstrate that the maintenance of single tones in memory is associated with activation in auditory cortex. In addition, sustained activation was observed in hippocampus and inferior frontal gyrus. Multivoxel pattern analysis showed that patterns of activity in auditory cortex and left inferior frontal gyrus distinguished the tone that was maintained in memory. Functional connectivity during maintenance was demonstrated between auditory cortex and both the hippocampus and inferior frontal cortex. The data support a system for auditory working memory based on the maintenance of sound-specific representations in auditory cortex by projections from higher-order areas, including the hippocampus and frontal cortex. In this work, we demonstrate a system for maintaining sound in working memory based on activity in auditory cortex, hippocampus, and frontal cortex, and functional connectivity among them. Specifically, our work makes three advances from the previous work. First, we robustly demonstrate hippocampal involvement in all phases of auditory working memory (encoding, maintenance, and retrieval): the role of hippocampus in working memory is controversial. Second, using a pattern classification technique, we show that activity in the auditory cortex and inferior frontal gyrus is specific to the maintained tones in working memory. Third, we show long-range connectivity of auditory cortex to hippocampus and frontal cortex, which may be responsible for keeping such representations active during working memory maintenance.
 Acoustic Stimulation - methods Adult Auditory Cortex - metabolism Auditory Perception - physiology Brain - metabolism Brain Mapping - methods Female Hippocampus - metabolism Humans Male Memory, Short-Term - physiology Middle Aged Prefrontal Cortex - metabolism

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