Faculty Collaboration Database

Concussion Alters the Functional Brain Processes of Visual Attention and Working Memory. J Neurotrauma 2018 Jan 15;35(2):267-277

Date

10/13/2017

Pubmed ID

29020848

DOI

10.1089/neu.2017.5117

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85041055863 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   18 Citations

Abstract

Millions of North Americans sustain a concussion or a mild traumatic brain injury annually, and are at risk of cognitive, emotional, and physical sequelae. Although functional MRI (fMRI) studies have provided an initial framework for examining functional deficits induced by concussion, particularly working memory and attention, the temporal dynamics underlying these deficits are not well understood. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG), a modality with millisecond temporal resolution, in conjunction with a 1-back visual working memory (VWM) paradigm using scenes from everyday life to characterize spatiotemporal functional differences at specific VWM stages, in adults had had or had not had a recent concussion. MEG source-level differences between groups were determined by whole-brain analyses during encoding and recognition phases. Despite comparable behavioral performance, abnormal hypo- and hyperactivation patterns were found in brain areas involving frontoparietal, ventral occipitotemporal, temporal, and subcortical areas in concussed patients. These patterns and their timing varied as a function of VWM stagewise processing, linked to early attentional control, visuoperceptual scene processing, and VWM maintenance and retrieval processes. Parietal hypoactivation, starting at 60 ms during encoding, was correlated with symptom severity, possibly linked to impaired top-down attentional processing. Hyperactivation in the scene-selective occipitotemporal areas, the medial temporal complex, specifically the right hippocampus and orbitofrontal areas during encoding and/or recognition, lead us to posit inefficient but compensatory visuoperceptual, relational, and retrieval processing. Although injuries sustained after the concussion were considered "mild," these data suggest that they can have prolonged effects on early attentional and VWM processes.

Author List

Shah-Basak PP, Urbain C, Wong S, da Costa L, Pang EW, Dunkley BT, Taylor MJ

Author

Priyanka P. Shah PhD Assistant Professor in the Neurology department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adult
Attention
Brain
Brain Concussion
Humans
Magnetoencephalography
Male
Memory, Short-Term
Visual Perception
Young Adult