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| Research article summary (published 30 Oct 2002): |
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Toward clinical application of neuropsychological activation probes with SPECT: a spatial working memory task.
Full Abstract
The concept of working memory is central to theories of human cognition, because it is essential to human skills such as decision making and deductive reasoning. Although PET and functional MRI have provided robust data on the recruitment of specific pathways in working memory tasks, the experimental settings of these studies may not be transferable to a clinical situation. Hence, to develop neuropsychological SPECT activation probes that are suitable for daily clinical practice, this study reports on a neuropsychological activation task of spatial working memory under classical neuropsychological test conditions in healthy subjects.
METHODS:
Reaction times and accuracy were measured as behavioral parameters and functional imaging data were analyzed with statistical parametric mapping to determine significant voxel-wise changes between the perception task and the memory task.
RESULTS:
Subjects reacted more slowly and performed less accurately during the memory task compared with the perception task, findings that are in keeping with other neuropsychological studies. Also, the overall pattern of brain activations revealed in our experiment is consistent with the data of the literature, thereby validating our test probe.
CONCLUSION:
From a practical viewpoint, the close resemblance of the test conditions of the SPECT procedure with those of the investigation room and the relative simplicity of the task under study probably constitute major advantages for future clinical application of the SPECT procedure in patients with cognitive impairments.
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Author information
Author/s: Goethals, Ingeborg (I); Audenaert, Kurt (K); Jacobs, Filip (F); Van De Wiele, Christophe (C); Vermeir, Griet (G); Vandierendonck, André (A); Van Heeringen, Cees (C); Dierckx, Rudi (R);
Affiliation: Division of Nuclear Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, Belgium. ingeborg.goethals(-atsign-)rug.ac.be
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Journal Article
Journal: Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine (J Nucl Med), published in United States. (Language: eng)
Reference: 2002-Nov; vol 43 (issue 11) : pp 1426-31
Dates: Created 2002/11/04; Completed 2002/12/03; Revised 2004/11/17;
PMID: 12411543, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
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