The role of human parietal and visual cortex in visual working memory investigated by concurrent fMRI-TMS

• Applicant: Dr. Pablo Grassi
• Subject Area: Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience ; Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience ; Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 465409366

The human parietal cortex and early visual cortex have been hypothesized to play an important role in visual working memory as human functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) decoding studies revealed fine-grained working memory information in both regions. The content of working memory information in the early visual areas is thought to be mediated via feedback connections from higher-level areas, such as the parietal cortex. However, causal evidence supporting these observations is still missing. In the current proposal we present two experiments designed to investigate the causal involvement of the human parietal and visual cortex in visual working memory. For this, we will combine transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with concurrent fMRI and psychophysics to answer the following questions: (1) does parietal cortex play a causal role in maintaining visual working memory? (2) does parietal cortex convey working memory content to early visual cortex? (3) is early visual cortex causally involved in the maintenance of visual working memory, and is this task-dependent? The combination of fMRI and TMS using a state-of-the-art setup will allow us to measure behavioural effects as well as neural effects across the whole-brain, and test central predictions of leading theories of working memory and previous correlational observations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Andreas Bartels, Ph.D.