Children and Adolescents Show Altered Visual Working Memory Related Brain Activity More Than One Decade After Arterial Switch Operation for D-Transposition of the Great Arteries

ABSTRACT

This pilot study investigated neural correlates of visual working memory using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in seven patients more than one decade after neonatal arterial switch operation for surgical correction of d-transposition of the great arteries (d-TGA, aged 10–18 years, 1 female). Compared with age and sex matched healthy controls patients showed similar visual working memory performance and a smaller increase in brain activity in the posterior parietal cortex with higher visual working memory load. These findings suggest that patients exhibit altered neural activity within a network that is known to support visuospatial memory and cognition.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Ruth O’Gorman Tuura for her institutional and technical support during the study. We thank the students Nathalie Hollenstein and Fabienne Meier, who helped recruiting and testing patients and controls and we would like to thank Raimund Kottke for his neuroradiological evaluation of the MR images.

Funding

This study was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), grant no. CR13I_127115.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), grant no. CR13I_127115.