Plasticity in the Working Memory System: Life Span Changes and Response to Injury

Abstract

Working memory acts as a key bridge between perception, long-term memory, and action. The brain regions, connections, and neurotransmitters that underlie working memory undergo dramatic plastic changes during the life span, and in response to injury. Early life reliance on deep gray matter structures fades during adolescence as increasing reliance on prefrontal and parietal cortex accompanies the development of executive aspects of working memory. The rise and fall of working memory capacity and executive functions parallels the development and loss of neurotransmitter function in frontal cortical areas. Of the affected neurotransmitters, dopamine and acetylcholine modulate excitatory-inhibitory circuits that underlie working memory, are important for plasticity in the system, and are affected following preterm birth and adult brain injury. Pharmacological interventions to promote recovery of working memory abilities have had limited success, but hold promise if used in combination with behavioral training and brain stimulation. The intense study of working memory in a range of species, ages and following injuries has led to better understanding of the intrinsic plasticity mechanisms in the working memory system. The challenge now is to guide these mechanisms to better improve or restore working memory function.

Relationships between apparent cortical thickness and working memory across the lifespan - Effects of genetics and socioeconomic status

“…In accordance with previous research, our results show that WM capacity increases during childhood and adolescence ( Chiappe et al, 2000 ; Gathercole et al, 2004 ; Klingberg, 2006 ) (for a comprehensive review, see ( Froudist-Walsh et al, 2018 )), and decreases with age in adulthood ( Gick et al, 1988 ; Hester et al, 2004 ; Kumar and Priyadarshi, 2013 ; Martial et al, 1994 ; Nyberg et al, 2012 ; Park et al, 2002 ; Wilde et al, 2004 ). WM performance was best described by three main phases of development and decline; rapid development until late teens, a longer period of relative stability in adulthood, followed by accelerated decline in higher age.…”

“…WM is involved in passive storage of information (short-term memory) and in manipulating and using that information while holding it in mind ( Gathercole et al, 2004 ). It has been argued that WM acts as a bridge between perception, long-term memory and action ( Froudist-Walsh et al, 2018 ). WM capacity predicts individual differences in other intellectual abilities and performance changes across the lifespan ( Cowan et al 2005 ; Gathercole et al, 2004 ; Klingberg, 2006 ; Østby et al, 2011 ).…”

Cognition and Cerebrovascular Reactivity in Midlife Women With History of Preeclampsia and Placental Evidence of Maternal Vascular Malperfusion

“…Of note, in this group, the parietal lobe may have been more susceptible to lower CVR because it had lower baseline flow. Cerebral SVD in fronto-parietal areas affect executive function regulation ( Wardlaw et al, 2013 ), planning, problem-solving, and decision-making ( Salthouse, 1996 ; Erel and Levy, 2016 ; Igelström and Graziano, 2017 ; Ardila et al, 2018 ; Bubb et al, 2018 ; Froudist-Walsh et al, 2018 ; Gratton et al, 2018 ; Nguyen et al, 2019 ; Worringer et al, 2019 ). In older age, cerebral SVD is an established risk factor for dementia ( Saxton et al, 2004 ; Backman et al, 2005 ; Rapp and Reischies, 2005 ; Rosano and Newman, 2006 ; Debette et al, 2019 ), and associations of lower CVR with dementia risk have been documented ( Di Marco et al, 2015 ; De Silva and Faraci, 2016 ; Nelson et al, 2016 ; Peng et al, 2018 ).…”

Large-scale comparative neuroimaging: Where are we and what do we need?

“…Nevertheless, studies comparing fMRI in humans and macaque monkeys have been successful in comparing visual processing (Vanduffel, Zhu, & Orban, 2014), tool use (Peeters et al., 2009), sequence processing (Wilson et al., 2015), and decision making (Chau et al., 2015), among others. As mentioned in the previous section, functional imaging in non-human primates can also be used fruitfully for longitudinal studies of development or plasticity following lesions (Froudist-Walsh, Lopez-Barroso, Jose Torres-Prioris, Croxson, & Berthier, 2018) and similar studies in marmoset are becoming more frequent (e.g. Hung et al., 2015).…”