Yen-Peng Liao1, Chi-Jen Chen1, Chih-Hsiung Wu2, Hui-Ling Hsu1, Ying-Chi Tseng1, Ho-Ling Liu3, Wen-Ta Chiu4
1Department of Medical Imaging, Taipei Medical University - Shuang Ho Hospital, New Taipei City, Taiwan, Taiwan; 2Surgery, Taipei Medical University - Shuang Ho Hospital, New Taipei City, Taiwan, Taiwan; 3Medical Imaging and Radiological Sciences, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan County, Taiwan, Taiwan; 4Graduate Institute of Injury Prevention and Control, Taipei Medical University, Taipei City, Taiwan
Previous functional MRI studies of mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) patients have indeed shown altered patterns of activation during working memory (WM) task. However, the results were inconsistent. This study aimed to analyze the brain activation patterns in response to n-back WM loads after MTBI. The results showed that MTBI-induced differences in WM functional activity were observed in the absence of differences in neuropsychological performance, suggesting that this approach may increase sensitivity to MTBI compared with neuropsychological evaluation alone. The results also lend further evidence to the potential for cerebral plasticity to maintain performance levels on WM tasks after MTBI.