What Is Targeted When We Train Working Memory? Evidence From a Meta-Analysis of the Neural Correlates of Working Memory Training Using Activation Likelihood Estimation

Oshin Vartanian; Vladyslava Replete; Sidney Ann Saint; Quan Lam; Sarah Forbes; Monique E Beaudoin; Tad T Brunyé; David J Bryant; Kathryn A Feltman; Kristin J Heaton; Richard A McKinley; Jan B F Van Erp; Annika Vergin; Annalise Whittaker

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.868001

What Is Targeted When We Train Working Memory? Evidence From a Meta-Analysis of the Neural Correlates of Working Memory Training Using Activation Likelihood Estimation

Front Psychol. 2022 Mar 30:13:868001. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.868001. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Oshin Vartanian^{1

2}, Vladyslava Replete^{1

3}, Sidney Ann Saint^{1

4}, Quan Lam¹, Sarah Forbes^{1

5}, Monique E Beaudoin⁶, Tad T Brunyé⁷, David J Bryant¹, Kathryn A Feltman⁸, Kristin J Heaton⁹, Richard A McKinley¹⁰, Jan B F Van Erp^{11

12}, Annika Vergin¹³, Annalise Whittaker¹⁴

Affiliations

¹ Defence Research and Development Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada.
² Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
³ Faculty of Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
⁴ Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
⁶ Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States.
⁷ U.S. Army DEVCOM Soldier Center, Natick, MA, United States.
⁸ U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory, Fort Rucker, AL, United States.
⁹ U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Natick, MA, United States.
¹⁰ U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, OH, United States.
¹¹ Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Soesterberg, Netherlands.
¹² Department of Human Media Interaction, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands.
¹³ Bundeswehr Office for Defence Planning, Federal Ministry of Defence, Berlin, Germany.
¹⁴ Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, UK Ministry of Defence, Salisbury, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Working memory (WM) is the system responsible for maintaining and manipulating information, in the face of ongoing distraction. In turn, WM span is perceived to be an individual-differences construct reflecting the limited capacity of this system. Recently, however, there has been some evidence to suggest that WM capacity can increase through training, raising the possibility that training can functionally alter the neural structures supporting WM. To address the hypothesis that the neural substrates underlying WM are targeted by training, we conducted a meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of WM training using Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE). Our results demonstrate that WM training is associated exclusively with decreases in blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) responses in clusters within the fronto-parietal system that underlie WM, including the bilateral inferior parietal lobule (BA 39/40), middle (BA 9) and superior (BA 6) frontal gyri, and medial frontal gyrus bordering on the cingulate gyrus (BA 8/32). We discuss the various psychological and physiological mechanisms that could be responsible for the observed reductions in the BOLD signal in relation to WM training, and consider their implications for the construct of WM span as a limited resource.

Keywords: cognitive resource; executive functions; meta-analysis; training; working memory span.

Copyright © 2022 Copyright © Beaudoin, Brunyé, Feltman, Heaton, McKinley, Van Erp, Vergin, Whittaker and Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, as represented by Defence Research and Development Canada.

Publication types

Systematic Review