An fMRi investigation of mental effort in a complex working memory task

•   A fundamental component of attention and working memory is the ability to allocate sufficient amount of mental resources to ongoing activity. Despite the fact that ’effort’ is a key ingredient to current theories about attention and memory, little is known about the brain’s regulation of cognitive effort. In this fMRI study, we employed the momentous Daneman reading span task (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980) to induce cognitive effort. We have previously used complex working memory tasks to study deficits with respect to effortful processing in patients with sleep disorders (Engström, et al., 2009). We have noted profound involvement of the anterior cingulate cortex in relation to cognitive effort. We now wish to corroborate this finding in a larger group of healthy participants.    

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MEDICINE

MEDICIN

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