Increased Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Accurate Eyewitness Memory Retrieval: An Exploratory Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

Keunsoo Ham; Ki Pyoung Kim; Hojin Jeong; Seong Ho Yoo

doi:10.7580/kjlm.2018.42.4.146

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Ham, Kim, Jeong, and Yoo: Increased Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Accurate Eyewitness Memory Retrieval: An Exploratory Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

Original Article

Korean Journal of Legal Medicine 2018; 42(4): 146-152.

Published online: 30 November 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7580/kjlm.2018.42.4.146

Increased Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Accurate Eyewitness Memory Retrieval: An Exploratory Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

Keunsoo Ham¹

, Ki Pyoung Kim¹

, Hojin Jeong¹

, Seong Ho Yoo²

¹Psychological Forensics Division, National Forensic Service, Wonju, Korea.

²Institute of Forensic Medicine and Department of Forensic Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Correspondence to Keunsoo Ham. Psychological Forensics Division, National Forensic Service, 10 Ipchun-ro, Wonju 26460, Korea. Tel: +82-33-902-5355, Fax: +82-33-902-5923, ksham@korea.kr

Co-correspondendce to Seong Ho Yoo. Institute of Forensic Medicine and Department of Forensic Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 103 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 03080, Korea. Tel: +82-2-740-8360, Fax: +82-2-902-8340, yoosh@snu.ac.kr

Received 9 November 2018 Revised 27 November 2018 Accepted 27 November 2018

The Korean Society for Legal Medicine

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

We investigated the neural correlates of accurate eyewitness memory retrieval using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. We analyzed oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO₂) concentration in the prefrontal cortex during eyewitness memory retrieval task and examined regional HbO₂ differences between observed objects (target) and unobserved objects (lure). We found that target objects elicited increased activation in the bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which is known for monitoring retrieval processing via bottom-up attentional processing. Our results suggest bottom-up attentional mechanisms could be different during accurate eyewitness memory retrieval. These findings indicate that investigating retrieval mechanisms using functional nearinfrared spectroscopy might be useful for establishing an accurate eyewitness recognition model.

Keywords: Memory, Recognition, Spectroscopy, near-infrared, Prefrontal cortex, Cognitive neuroscience

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Schematic of the experimental design. Participants watched mock-crime video and performed recognition task about 1 hour later. Three-word stimulus was presents as a memory cue for which a response was selected from two alternatives (seen or unseen). Participants could witness the stimulus in target condition appeared in mock-crime video, but couldn't witness the stimulus in other conditions (color-changed lure and form-changed lure).

Fig. 2

Schematic of functional near-infrared spectroscopy probes and optode locations registered to the Montreal Neurological Institute brain template across prefrontal cortex.

Fig. 3

Bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) showing significant activation differences between the hit and correct rejection conditions. Significantly activated voxels in the hit condition (A) and correct rejection condition (B). (C) Compared to the correct rejection condition, voxels in bilateral VLPFC showed higher activation in the hit condition (uncorrected P<0.005).

Table 1

Brain regions showing differences in activation between hit and correct rejection condition

MNI, Montreal Neurological Institute; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; NA, not applicable.

^a)The number of voxel in the cluster; ^b)Uncorrected P<0.005 at voxel level, critical value (T)=2.88.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Forensic Service (2017-Psychology-01), Ministry of the Interior and safety, Republic of Korea.

Notes

^{Conflicts of Interest} No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

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ORCID iDs

Keunsoo Ham
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7796-5009

Ki Pyoung Kim
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8334-1307

Hojin Jeong
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0672-6112

Seong Ho Yoo
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5294-0596

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