Basal Ganglia Contributions To Visual-spatial Working Memory

Objective To explore visual-spatial working memory deficits of patients with basal ganglia damage, based on which tried to provide the new method for detecting the injuries in basal ganglia.Methods Twenty-five patients with lesions in the basal ganglia and twenty-five healthy controls performed visual-spatial working memory tasks, including a face-recognition and a spatial delayed-response.Results For the basal ganglia damage group, the correct rate of both visual- face (54.5±9.6)% and visual-spatial (80.0±11.7)% working memory tasks was significantly lower than that of the control group [(64.3±9.5) %,(93.6±4.9) %, respectively], and the difference was statistically significant (u=-147.5,80.5,P < 0.01). For the patients injured in the left basal ganglia, the correct rate of visual- face working memory (48.5±5.4) % was obviously lower than that of patients injured in the right basal ganglia (59.2±9.8) %, and the difference was statistically significant (u=25.5,P < 0.01); but the difference of correct rate for the visual-space working memory was not statistically significant(u=52.5,P>0.05). For the basal ganglia damage group, the reaction time of both visual- face(2314.9±400.4)ms and visual-spatial (1844.2±381.9)ms working memory tasks was significantly longer than that of the control group [(1871.8±621.2)ms,(1389.6±368.2)ms, respectively], and the difference was statistically significant (u=171.0,123.0,P < 0.01).However, for patients with injuries in the left and right basal ganglia, the difference of reaction time between the visual-face and the visual-space working memory tasks is not statistically significant (u=43.0,57.0,P>0.05).So the results confirmed that basal ganglia plays an important role in the memory circle, and injuries in basal ganglia can cause deficits of visual-spatial working memory. Both the left and the right basal ganglia have similar influence on such deficits.Conclusions The results confirmed that patients with lesions in basal ganglia had deficits of visual-spatial working memory, and that injuries either in the left or the right basal ganglia can probably cause the shiftiness of cognitive function. Therefore, the injuries in basal ganglia can be detected by the visual-spatial working memory tests.