This fMRI study of 126 youth explored whether the neural mechanisms underlying the N-back task, commonly used to examine executive control over the contents of working memory, are associated with individual differences in academic achievement in reading and math. Moreover, the study explored whether these relationships occur regardless of the nature of the stimulus being manipulated in working memory (letters, numbers, nonsense shapes) or whether these relationships are specific to achievement domain and stimulus type (i.e., letters for reading and numbers for math). The results indicated that higher academic achievement in each of reading and math was associated with greater activation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the N-back task regardless of stimulus type (i.e., did not differ for letters and numbers), suggesting that at least some aspects of the neural mechanisms underlying these academic domains are executive in nature. In addition, regardless of level of academic achievement, prefrontal regions were engaged to a greater degree for letters than numbers than nonsense shapes. In contrast, nonsense shapes yielded greater hippocampal activation than letters and numbers. Potential reasons for this pattern of findings are discussed.

中文翻译：

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刺激塑造策略：刺激特征和学业成绩的个体差异对 N-back 任务中神经机制的影响

这项针对 126 名青少年的功能磁共振成像研究探讨了 N-back 任务（通常用于检查对工作记忆内容的执行控制）背后的神经机制是否与阅读和数学学业成绩的个体差异相关。此外，该研究还探讨了这些关系的发生是否与工作记忆中操纵的刺激的性质（字母、数字、无意义的形状）无关，或者这些关系是否特定于成就领域和刺激类型（即用于阅读的字母和用于阅读的数字）。数学）。结果表明，无论刺激类型如何，阅读和数学中较高的学业成绩与 N-back 任务中背外侧前额叶皮层的更大激活相关（即，字母和数字没有差异），这表明至少在某些方面这些学术领域背后的神经机制本质上是执行性的。此外，无论学术成就水平如何，前额叶区域对字母的参与程度高于数字，而不是无意义的形状。相比之下，无意义的形状比字母和数字更能激活海马体。讨论了这种发现模式的潜在原因。