Impact of pressure as a tactile stimulus on working memory in healthy participants

Studies on cross-modal interaction have demonstrated attenuated as well as facilitated effects for both neural responses as well as behavioral performance. The goals of this pilot study were to investigate possible cross-modal interactions of tactile stimulation on visual working memory and to ident...

Verfasser: Dehghan Nayyeri, Mahboobeh
Burgmer, Markus
Pfleiderer, Bettina
FB/Einrichtung:FB 05: Medizinische Fakultät
Dokumenttypen:Artikel
Medientypen:Text
Erscheinungsdatum:2019
Publikation in MIAMI:16.04.2019
Datum der letzten Änderung:16.04.2019
Angaben zur Ausgabe:[Electronic ed.]
Quelle:PLoS ONE 14 (2019) 3, e0213070, 1-15
Fachgebiet (DDC):610: Medizin und Gesundheit
Lizenz:CC BY 4.0
Sprache:English
Format:PDF-Dokument
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-85129432126
Weitere Identifikatoren:DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213070
Permalink:https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-85129432126
Onlinezugriff:artikel_pfleiderer_2019.pdf

Studies on cross-modal interaction have demonstrated attenuated as well as facilitated effects for both neural responses as well as behavioral performance. The goals of this pilot study were to investigate possible cross-modal interactions of tactile stimulation on visual working memory and to identify possible neuronal correlates by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During fMRI, participants (n = 12 females, n = 12 males) performed a verbal n-back task (0-back and 2-back tasks) while tactile pressure to the left thumbnail was delivered. Participants presented significantly lower behavioral performances (increased error rates, and reaction times) during the 2-back task as compared to the 0-back task. Task performance was independent of pressure in both tasks. This means that working memory performance was not impacted by a low salient tactile stimulus. Also in the fMRI data, no significant interactions of n-back x pressure were observed. In conclusion, the current study found no influence of tactile pressure on task-related brain activity during n-back (0-back and 2-back) tasks.