The present meta-analytic study examined brain activation changes following working memory (WM) training, a form of cognitive training that has attracted considerable interest. Comparisons with perceptual-motor (PM) learning revealed that WM training engages domain-general large-scale networks for learning encompassing the dorsal attention and salience networks, sensory areas, and striatum. Also the dynamics of the training-induced brain activation changes within these networks showed a high overlap between WM and PM training. The distinguishing feature for WM training was the consistent modulation of the dorso- and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC/VLPFC) activity. The strongest candidate for mediating transfer to similar untrained WM tasks was the frontostriatal system, showing higher striatal and VLPFC activations, and lower DLPFC activations after training. Modulation of transfer-related areas occurred mostly with longer training periods. Overall, our findings place WM training effects into a general perception-action cycle, where some modulations may depend on the specific cognitive demands of a training task.

本荟萃分析研究检查了工作记忆（WM）训练后的大脑激活变化，这是一种引起广泛关注的认知训练形式。与知觉运动（PM）学习的比较显示，WM训练使用领域通用的大型网络进行学习，其中包括背侧注意力和显着性网络，感觉区域和纹状体。在这些网络中，由训练引起的大脑激活变化的动力学也显示出WM和PM训练之间的高度重叠。WM训练的显着特征是对前后腹侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC / VLPFC）活动的一致调节。调解到未经训练的WM任务的最强候选者是额骨系统，其纹状体和VLPFC激活较高，并在训练后降低DLPFC激活。与调动有关的领域的调整大多发生在培训时间较长的情况下。总体而言，我们的发现将WM训练效果置于一般的感知-行动周期中，其中某些调节可能取决于训练任务的特定认知需求。