Dissociation within the Frontoparietal Network in Verbal Working Memory: A Parametric Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Concomitant increase in activity within the mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (MDLFC) and the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is observed in most functional neuroimaging studies of working memory (Collette et al., 1999; Gerton et al., 2004; Sun et al., 2005; Postle et al., 2006; Champod and Petrides, 2007; Emery et al., 2008). Despite broad consensus on the importance of these two brain regions in working memory, their unique contribution, especially that of the PPC, remains a matter of heated debate (Paulesu et al., 1993; Smith and Jonides, 1998; Postle et al., 1999; Berryhill and Olson, 2008). The main objective of the present parametric event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study was to examine the hypothesis that the cortex in the intraparietal sulcus region in the PPC is involved in the manipulation (i.e., rearrangement) of verbal information in working memory and to dissociate the involvement of this brain region from that of the MDLFC in working memory processes. The results demonstrated a linear increase in activity within the MDLFC during the manipulation and monitoring of a linearly increasing number of words in working memory. In sharp contrast, there was a linear increase in activity within the PPC during the manipulation but not the monitoring of a linearly increasing number of words. This study provides the first parametric dissociation of activation in these two cortical regions indicating a crucial role of the PPC in the manipulation of information in working memory, with the MDLFC playing a major role in monitoring this information.