Visual memory and functional MRI

Purpose: The aim of our study was to evidence the location of the cortical area triggered by visual memory tasks by he mean of functional magnetic res onance imaging examination (fMRI). Methods: Twelve healthy volunteers underwent fMRI examination on a 1.5 Tesl a magnet with echoplanar imaging sequence during figurative and non-figurat ive memory tasks. An area was considered to be activated if at least 10 con tiguous voxels activation was noted. Activated areas were defined for both tasks and the brain mapping was realized according to Talairach atlas. Results: For all examinations a bilateral activity was evidenced (area 17 a nd 18). In addition, a frontal activation was also noted in 83% of the case s for both tasks. However. frontal activation was bilateral in 9/10 cases f or the figurative task and 6/10 cases for the non-figurative task. Conclusion: FMRI was able to evidence activation of cerebral areas during v isual memory tasks in all our study cases. Frontal activation was not discr iminative of figurative or non figurative memory. This might be probably ex plain by inappropriate non-figurative tests. FMRI should allow a better kno wledge of memory mechanisms as well as an enhancement of functional cerebra l mapping before surgery.