Schedule of Events | Symposia

Neural differentiation in working memory operations predicts individual differences thought control difficulties

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

Jacob DeRosa^1,2 (jacob.derosa@colorado.edu), Harry Smolker², Hyojeong Kim³, Jarrod Lewis-Peacock³, Marie Banich^1,2; ¹Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, ²Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder, ³Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin

Prior work from our group demonstrated that each of four working memory (WM) control operations—maintaining an item, replacing it, specifically suppressing it, or clearing the mind of all thought—are associated with unique multi-voxel patterns of brain activation (Kim et al., 2020). We also identified four brain networks – visual network (VN), somatomotor network (SMN), default mode network (DMN), and frontoparietal control network (FPCN) – that represent these operations in unique configurations (DeRosa et al., 2024). For example, the FPCN differentiates among all four operations, whereas the VN groups maintain and replace together, and clear and suppress together. The current study investigates individual differences (N=48) in the distinctiveness of control operations within these networks. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that less differentiated fMRI activity patterns for these operations are linked to self-reported difficulties in thought control. This is clinically significant, as impairments in thought control are strongly associated with pathological rumination and worry. We operationalized thought-control difficulty as the average of three self-report scales: White Bear Suppression Inventory, Penn State Worry Questionnaire, and the brooding scale of the Ruminative Response Scale. Consistent with our hypothesis, thought-control difficulty was associated with less differentiated control patterns. In particular, the representation of the suppression operation in DMN was less distinct from its representations in other networks, and the representation of suppression within the FPCN was more variable. These neural patterns explain up to 30% of the variance in self-reported thought difficulties, suggesting their potential utility in uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying repetitive negative thinking.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory