Schedule of Events | Symposia

Developmental Alterations in the Load-Dependent Oscillatory Dynamics of Verbal Working Memory Processing in Youth

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Augusto Diedrich^1,2,3 (augusto.diedrich@boystown.org), Yasra Arif^1,2, Maggie Rempe^1,2,4, Zhiying Shen^1,2,3, Elizabeth Heinrichs-Graham^1,2,3; ¹Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, ²Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE, ³School of Medicine, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, ⁴College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE

Background: Studies using electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) show that working memory-related activity is sensitive to both load and age, but little is known regarding the spatiotemporal dynamics of load-dependent working memory (WM) processing in youth. The purpose of this study was to probe how working memory-related oscillations differ as a function of stimulus load. Participants & Methods: A sample of 57 typically developing children between the ages of 7-15 successfully completed two blocks of a modified Sternberg verbal WM task during MEG (i.e., one block of 2-letter, “low load” trials and one block of 4-letter, “high load” trials). Neural data were preprocessed and transformed into the time-frequency domain. Significant oscillatory responses were identified and imaged using beamforming. Load-by-age interactions were identified, and peak pseudo-t values for each significant cluster were extracted and related to task performance. Results: Behavioral data revealed significant main effects of load and age for both accuracy and reaction time. There was also a significant load-by-age interaction on accuracy. The source-level LME analyses revealed significant load-by-age interactions in alpha-beta activity in the right middle and inferior temporal cortices during encoding and maintenance, with each WM phase showing distinct load-by-age dynamics. Importantly, these neural dynamics significantly predicted performance on the task. Conclusion: Load-sensitive neural oscillatory dynamics underlying working memory differentially scaled with development and were significantly related to task performance. These data could enable researchers to better understand how the developing brain serves increasing cognitive demand in health and disease.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory