Bilateral basal ganglia activity in verbal working memory

Although the cortical substrates of verbal working memory are reasonably well understood, less is known about the relative contribution of subcortical structures to verbal working memory. Therefore, in addition to elaboration of a model of verbal working memory by including a specific focus on basal ganglia, the purpose of this study also was to examine potential differences in neural function across the complete process of verbal working memory, from encoding through retrieval. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to observe regions of brain activation in neurologically normal participants during a task of verbal working memory. The expected frontal-parietal network was found to be active over the course of the verbal working memory task. The encoding portion of the task engaged left inferior frontal regions and bilateral caudate and thalamus. Bilateral medial thalamus and posterior cingulate regions were engaged during the maintenance phase of the task. Retrieval activated the left inferior frontal sulcus and posterior parietal/occipital regions. Findings are considered in light of current models of verbal working memory and subcortical structures.