Working memory is a type of short-term memory that allows us to temporarily store and manipulate information.
It is often referred to as the “mental workspace” as we hold the information that we are currently using in our working memory.
For example, if you are reading a sentence and need to remember a word in order to understand the meaning of the sentence, you would use your working memory to hold on to that word while you finish reading the sentence. Working memory is important for many everyday tasks, such as following a set of instructions or having a conversation.
Working memory is notably affected in patients with psychosis, but it is not clear whether psychosis affects our ability to store or process the stored information.
With Qiang Luo and colleagues from Fudan University, Shanghai, we modified a working memory task to separate storage and processing aspects and found that people with schizophrenia had more processing than storage deficit.
We observed altered brain activation patterns in people with schizophrenia, linked to genes in the dopamine neurotransmitter system and associated with poorer performance in people with schizophrenia
This work links cognitive deficits seen in the early stages of schizophrenia with abnormal brain activation patterns that relate to the dopamine system.
