Phonological properties of logographic words modulate brain activation in bilinguals: a comparative study of Chinese characters and Japanese Kanji.

The brain networks for the first (L1) and second (L2) languages are dynamically formed in the bilingual brain. This study delves into the neural mechanisms associated with logographic-logographic bilingualism, where both languages employ visually complex and conceptually rich logographic scripts. Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, we examined the brain activity of Chinese-Japanese bilinguals and Japanese-Chinese bilinguals as they engaged in rhyming tasks with Chinese characters and Japanese Kanji. Results showed that Japanese-Chinese bilinguals processed both languages using common brain areas, demonstrating an assimilation pattern, whereas Chinese-Japanese bilinguals recruited additional neural regions in the left lateral prefrontal cortex for processing Japanese Kanji, reflecting their accommodation to the higher phonological complexity of L2. In addition, Japanese speakers relied more on the phonological processing route, while Chinese speakers favored visual form analysis for both languages, indicating differing neural strategy preferences between the 2 bilingual groups. Moreover, multivariate pattern analysis demonstrated that, despite the considerable neural overlap, each bilingual group formed distinguishable neural representations for each language. These findings highlight the brain's capacity for neural adaptability and specificity when processing complex logographic languages, enriching our understanding of the neural underpinnings supporting bilingual language processing.

Functional and structural gradients reveal atypical hierarchical organization of Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients exhibit deficits in primary sensorimotor and higher-order executive functions. The gradient reflects the functional spectrum in sensorimotor-associated areas of the brain. We aimed to determine whether the gradient is disrupted in PD patients and how this disruption is associated with treatment outcome. Seventy-six patients (mean age, 59.2 ± 12.4 years [standard deviation], 44 women) and 34 controls participants (mean age, 58.1 ± 10.0 years [standard deviation], 19 women) were evaluated. We explored functional and structural gradients in PD patients and control participants. Patients were followed during 2 weeks of multidisciplinary intensive rehabilitation therapy (MIRT). The Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Part III (UPDRS-III) was administered to patients before and after treatment. We investigated PD-related alterations in the principal functional and structural gradients. We further used a support vector machine (SVM) and correlation analysis to assess the classification ability and treatment outcomes related to PD gradient alterations, respectively. The gradients showed significant differences between patients and control participants, mainly in somatosensory and visual networks involved in primary function, and higher-level association networks (dorsal attentional network (DAN) and default mode network (DMN)) related to motor control and execution. On the basis of the combined functional and structural gradient features of these networks, the SVM achieved an accuracy of 91.2% in discriminating patients from control participants. Treatment reduced the gradient difference. The altered gradient exhibited a significant correlation with motor improvement and was mainly distributed across the visual network, DAN and DMN. This study revealed damage to gradients in the brain characterized by sensorimotor and executive control deficits in PD patients. The application of gradient features to neurological disorders could lead to the development of potential diagnostic and treatment markers for PD.

Event-related potential evidence for tactile orientation processing in the human brain.

It is well known that information on stimulus orientation plays an important role in sensory processing. However, the neural mechanisms underlying somatosensory orientation perception are poorly understood. Adaptation has been widely used as a tool for examining sensitivity to specific features of sensory stimuli. Using the adaptation paradigm, we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to tactile orientation stimuli presented pseudo-randomly to the right-hand palm in trials with all the same or different orientations. Twenty participants were asked to count the tactile orientation stimuli. The results showed that the adaptation-related N60 component was observed around contralateral central-parietal areas, possibly indicating orientation processing in the somatosensory regions. Conversely, the adaptation-related N120 component was identified bilaterally across hemispheres, suggesting the involvement of the frontoparietal circuitry in further tactile orientation processing. P300 component was found across the whole brain in all conditions and was associated with task demands, such as attention and stimulus counting. These findings help provide an understanding of the mechanisms of tactile orientation processing in the human brain.

Individual prefrontal neurons contribute to sensory-to-motor information transformation by rotating reference frames during spatial working memory performance.

Performing working memory tasks correctly requires not only the temporary maintenance of information but also the visual-to-motor transformation of information. Although sustained delay-period activity is known to be a mechanism for temporarily maintaining information, the mechanism for information transformation is not well known. An analysis using a population of delay-period activities recorded from prefrontal neurons visualized a gradual change of maintained information from sensory to motor as the delay period progressed. However, the contributions of individual prefrontal neurons to this process are not known. In the present study, we used a version of the delayed-response task, in which monkeys needed to make a saccade 90o clockwise from a visual cue after a 3-s delay, and examined the temporal change in the preferred directions of delay-period activity during the delay period for individual neurons. One group of prefrontal neurons encoded the cue direction by a retinotopic reference frame and either maintained it throughout the delay period or rotated it 90o counterclockwise to adjust visual information to saccade information, whereas other groups of neurons encoded the cue direction by a saccade-based reference frame and rotated it 90o clockwise. The results indicate that visual-to-motor information transformation is achieved by manipulating the reference frame to adjust visual coordinates to motor coordinates.

Individual-level functional connectomes predict the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

Abnormalities in functional connectivity networks are associated with sensorimotor networks in Parkinson's disease (PD) based on group-level mapping studies, but these results are controversial. Using individual-level cortical segmentation to construct individual brain atlases can supplement the individual information covered by group-level cortical segmentation. Functional connectivity analyses at the individual level are helpful for obtaining clinically useful markers and predicting treatment response. Based on the functional connectivity of individualized regions of interest, a support vector regression model was trained to estimate the severity of motor symptoms for each subject, and a correlation analysis between the estimated scores and clinical symptom scores was performed. Forty-six PD patients aged 50-75 years were included from the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative database, and 63 PD patients were included from the Beijing Rehabilitation Hospital database. Only patients below Hoehn and Yahr stage III were included. The analysis showed that the severity of motor symptoms could be estimated by the individualized functional connectivity between the visual network and sensorimotor network in early-stage disease. The results reveal individual-level connectivity biomarkers related to motor symptoms and emphasize the importance of individual differences in the prediction of the treatment response of PD.

Altered higher-order coupling between brain structure and function with embedded vector representations of connectomes in schizophrenia.

It has been shown that the functional dependency of the brain exists in both direct and indirect regional relationships. Therefore, it is necessary to map higher-order coupling in brain structure and function to understand brain dynamic. However, how to quantify connections between not directly regions remains unknown to schizophrenia. The word2vec is a common algorithm through create embeddings of words to solve these problems. We apply the node2vec embedding representation to characterize features on each node, their pairwise relationship can give rise to correspondence relationships between brain regions. Then we adopt pearson correlation to quantify the higher-order coupling between structure and function in normal controls and schizophrenia. In addition, we construct direct and indirect connections to quantify the coupling between their respective functional connections. The results showed that higher-order coupling is significantly higher in schizophrenia. Importantly, the anomalous cause of coupling mainly focus on indirect structural connections. The indirect structural connections play an essential role in functional connectivity-structural connectivity (SC-FC) coupling. The similarity between embedded representations capture more subtle network underlying information, our research provides new perspectives for understanding SC-FC coupling. A strong indication that the structural backbone of the brain has an intimate influence on the resting-state functional.

Individual functional parcellation revealed compensation of dynamic limbic network organization in healthy ageing.

Using group-level functional parcellations and constant-length sliding window analysis, dynamic functional connectivity studies have revealed network-specific impairment and compensation in healthy ageing. However, functional parcellation and dynamic time windows vary across individuals; individual-level ageing-related brain dynamics are uncertain. Here, we performed individual parcellation and individual-length sliding window clustering to characterize ageing-related dynamic network changes. Healthy participants (n = 637, 18-88 years) from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience dataset were included. An individual seven-network parcellation, varied from group-level parcellation, was mapped for each participant. For each network, strong and weak cognitive brain states were revealed by individual-length sliding window clustering and canonical correlation analysis. The results showed negative linear correlations between age and change ratios of sizes in the default mode, frontoparietal, and salience networks and a positive linear correlation between age and change ratios of size in the limbic network (LN). With increasing age, the occurrence and dwell time of strong states showed inverted U-shaped patterns or a linear decreasing pattern in most networks but showed a linear increasing pattern in the LN. Overall, this study reveals a compensative increase in emotional networks (i.e., the LN) and a decline in cognitive and primary sensory networks in healthy ageing. These findings may provide insights into network-specific and individual-level targeting during neuromodulation in ageing and ageing-related diseases.

Spatiotemporal and sensory modality attention processing with domain-specific representations in frontoparietal areas.

The frontoparietal network (FPN), including bilateral frontal eye field, inferior parietal sulcus, and supplementary motor area, has been linked to attention processing, including spatiotemporal and sensory modality domains. However, it is unclear whether FPN encodes representations of these domains that are generalizable across subdomains. We decomposed multivariate patterns of functional magnetic resonance imaging activity from 20 participants into domain-specific components and identified latent multivariate representations that generalized across subdomains. The 30 experimental conditions were organized into unimodal-bimodal and spatial-temporal models. We found that brain areas in the FPN, form the primary network that modulated during attention across domains. However, the activation patterns of areas within the FPN were reorganized according to the specific attentional demand, especially when pay attention to different sensory, suggesting distinct regional neural representations associated with specific attentional processes within FPN. In addition, there were also other domain-specific areas outside the FPN, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Our conclusion is that, according to the results of the analysis of representation similarity, 2 types of activated brain regions, related to attention domain detailed information processing and general information processing, can be revealed.

Episodic memory in aspects of brain information transfer by resting-state network topology.

Cognitive functionality emerges due to neural interactions. The interregional signal interactions underlying episodic memory are a complex process. Thus, we need to quantify this process more accurately to understand how brain regions receive information from other regions. Studies suggest that resting-state functional connectivity (FC) conveys cognitive information; additionally, activity flow estimates the contribution of the source region to the activation pattern of the target region, thus decoding the cognitive information transfer. Therefore, we performed a combined analysis of task-evoked activation and resting-state FC voxel-wise by activity flow mapping to estimate the information transfer pattern of episodic memory. We found that the cinguloopercular (CON), frontoparietal (FPN) and default mode networks (DMNs) were the most recruited structures in information transfer. The patterns and functions of information transfer differed between encoding and retrieval. Furthermore, we found that information transfer was a better predictor of memory ability than previous methods. Additional analysis indicated that structural connectivity (SC) had a transportive role in information transfer. Finally, we present the information transfer mechanism of episodic memory from multiple neural perspectives. These findings suggest that information transfer is a better biological indicator that accurately describes signal communication in the brain and strongly influences the function of episodic memory.

Layer-specific activation in human primary somatosensory cortex during tactile temporal prediction error processing.

The human brain continuously generates predictions of incoming sensory input and calculates corresponding prediction errors from the perceived inputs to update internal predictions. In human primary somatosensory cortex (area 3b), different cortical layers are involved in receiving the sensory input and generation of error signals. It remains unknown, however, how the layers in the human area 3b contribute to the temporal prediction error processing. To investigate prediction error representation in the area 3b across layers, we acquired layer-specific functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data at 7T from human area 3b during a task of index finger poking with no-delay, short-delay and long-delay touching sequences. We demonstrate that all three tasks increased activity in both superficial and deep layers of area 3b compared to the random sensory input. The fMRI signal was differentially modulated solely in the deep layers rather than the superficial layers of area 3b by the delay time. Compared with the no-delay stimuli, activity was greater in the deep layers of area 3b during the short-delay stimuli but lower during the long-delay stimuli. This difference activity features in the superficial and deep layers suggest distinct functional contributions of area 3b layers to tactile temporal prediction error processing. The functional segregation in area 3b across layers may reflect that the excitatory and inhibitory interplay in the sensory cortex contributions to flexible communication between cortical layers or between cortical areas.

Tactile angle discriminability improvement: contributions of working memory training and continuous attended sensory input.

Perceptual learning is commonly assumed to enhance perception through continuous attended sensory input. However, learning is generalizable to performance in untrained stimuli and tasks. Although previous studies have observed a possible generalization effect across tasks as a result of working memory (WM) training, comparisons of the contributions of WM training and continuous attended sensory input to perceptual learning generalization are still rare. Therefore, we compared which factors contributed most to perceptual generalization and investigated which skills acquired during WM training led to tactile generalization across tasks. Here, a Braille-like dot pattern matching n-back WM task was used as the WM training task, with four workload levels (0, 1, 2, and 3-back levels). A tactile angle discrimination (TAD) task was used as a pre- and posttest to assess improvements in tactile perception. Between tests, four subject groups were randomly assigned to four different workload n-back tasks to consecutively complete three sessions of training. The results showed that tactile n-back WM training could enhance TAD performance, with the 3-back training group having the highest TAD threshold improvement rate. Furthermore, the rate of WM capacity improvement on the 3-back level across training sessions was correlated with the rate of TAD threshold improvement. These findings suggest that continuous attended sensory input and enhanced WM capacity can lead to improvements in TAD ability, and that greater improvements in WM capacity can predict greater improvements in TAD performance.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Perceptual learning is not always specific to the trained task and stimuli. We demonstrate that both continuous attended sensory input and improved WM capacity can be used to enhance tactile angle discrimination (TAD) ability. Moreover, WM capacity improvement is important in generalizing the training effect to the TAD ability. These findings contribute to understanding the mechanism of perceptual learning generalization across tasks.

Alterations in white matter network dynamics in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Emerging evidence suggests white matter network abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD), but the alterations in dynamics of the white matter network in patients with SZ and BD are largely unknown. The white matter network of patients with SZ (n = 45) and BD (n = 47) and that of healthy controls (HC, n = 105) were constructed. We used dynamics network control theory to quantify the dynamics metrics of the network, including controllability and synchronizability, to measure the ability to transfer between different states. Experiments show that the patients with SZ and BD showed decreasing modal controllability and synchronizability and increasing average controllability. The correlations between the average controllability and synchronizability of patients were broken, especially for those with SZ. The patients also showed alterations in brain regions with supercontroller roles and their distribution in the cognitive system. Finally, we were able to accurately discriminate and predict patients with SZ and BD. Our findings provide novel dynamic metrics evidence that patients with SZ and BD are characterized by a selective disruption of brain network controllability, potentially leading to reduced brain state transfer capacity, and offer new guidance for the clinical diagnosis of mental illness.

Development of a Piezoelectric Actuated Tactile Stimulation Device for Population Receptive Field Mapping in Human Somatosensory Cortex With fMRI.

BACKGROUND: Multichannel tactile stimulation devices is need to investigate human finger population receptive field (pRF) characteristics in the primary somatosensory cortex during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). PURPOSE: To accurately characterize right-hand somatosensory representation based on the Bayesian pRF model. STUDY TYPE: Prospective. POPULATION: A water phantom and six healthy participants (four males, mean 23.8 years old). FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: T1-weighted magnetization-prepared rapid gradient-echo, T2*-weighted echo planar imaging at 3 T. ASSESSMENT: The piezoelectric actuated tactile stimulation device consisted of execution unit and control unit. The output performance of the device was measured by a laser displacement sensor. The effect of the device on images' signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was measured by phantom experiments. The activation representation arrangement order, relative volumes, and receptive field size of the right hand were assessed during the along-digits and cross-digits paradigms. STATISTICAL TESTS: The normality of the data was tested by the Shapiro-Wilk method. A paired-sample t test was performed to test pRF characteristics for all digit pairings. The significance level was set to P = 0.05 (false discovery rate [FDR] correct). RESULTS: Percussive stimulation provided by the piezoelectric actuated tactile stimulator had a stable displacement (2.64 mm) over a wide range of vibration frequencies (0-30 Hz). The output delay of the device was 1 millisecond. The device did not affect the image's SNR (without the device: SNR = 138.24 ± 7.87, temporal SNR [TSNR] = 440.03 ± 52.08. With the device: SNR = 138.06 ± 8.44, TSNR = 438.52 ± 56.38. PSNR  = 0.88, PTSNR  = 0.46). Representations of right-hand fingers showed the same arrangement order in both experiments (D1-D5 arranged along the central sulcus). However, the relative volumes of D3 showed significant differences in S1 (P = 0.003). Among four subareas, the relative volumes of D3 were significantly different in area 1 (P = 0.047). DATA CONCLUSION: This developed stimulator, through experimental verification, could play a role in pRF mapping exploration. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 2 TECHNICAL EFFICACY STAGE: 1.

Global surface features contribute to human haptic roughness estimations.

Previous studies have paid special attention to the relationship between local features (e.g., raised dots) and human roughness perception. However, the relationship between global features (e.g., curved surface) and haptic roughness perception is still unclear. In the present study, a series of roughness estimation experiments was performed to investigate how global features affect human roughness perception. In each experiment, participants were asked to estimate the roughness of a series of haptic stimuli that combined local features (raised dots) and global features (sinusoidal-like curves). Experiments were designed to reveal whether global features changed their haptic roughness estimation. Furthermore, the present study tested whether the exploration method (direct, indirect, and static) changed haptic roughness estimations and examined the contribution of global features to roughness estimations. The results showed that sinusoidal-like curved surfaces with small periods were perceived to be rougher than those with large periods, while the direction of finger movement and indirect exploration did not change this phenomenon. Furthermore, the influence of global features on roughness was modulated by local features, regardless of whether raised-dot surfaces or smooth surfaces were used. Taken together, these findings suggested that an object's global features contribute to haptic roughness perceptions, while local features change the weight of the contribution that global features make to haptic roughness perceptions.

Population Receptive Field Characteristics in the between- and Within-Digit Dimensions of the Undominant Hand in the Primary Somatosensory Cortex.

Somatotopy is an important guiding principle for sensory fiber organization in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1), which reflects tactile information processing and is associated with disease-related reorganization. However, it is difficult to measure the neuronal encoding scheme in S1 in vivo in normal participants. Here, we investigated the somatotopic map of the undominant hand using a Bayesian population receptive field (pRF) model. The model was established in hand space with between- and within-digit dimensions. In the between-digit dimension, orderly representation was found, which had low variability across participants. The pRF shape tended to be elliptical for digits with high spatial acuity, for which the long axis was along the within-digit dimension. In addition, the pRF width showed different change trends in the 2 dimensions across digits. These results provide new insights into the neural mechanisms in S1, allowing for in-depth investigation of somatosensory information processing and disease-related reorganization.

Triple tSMS system ("SHIN jiba") for non-invasive deep brain stimulation: a validation study in healthy subjects.

BACKGROUND: Transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) using a small and strong neodymium (NdFeB) magnet can temporarily suppress brain functions below the magnet. It is a promising non-invasive brain stimulation modality because of its competitive advantages such as safety, simplicity, and low-cost. However, current tSMS is insufficient to effectively stimulate deep brain areas due to attenuation of the magnetic field with the distance from the magnet. The aim of this study was to develop a brand-new tSMS system for non-invasive deep brain stimulation. METHODS: We designed and fabricated a triple tSMS system with three cylindrical NdFeB magnets placed close to each other. We compared the strength of magnetic field produced by the triple tSMS system with that by the current tSMS. Furthermore, to confirm its function, we stimulated the primary motor area in 17 healthy subjects with the triple tSMS for 20 min and assessed the cortical excitability using the motor evoked potential (MEP) obtained by transcranial magnetic stimulation. RESULTS: Our triple tSMS system produced the magnetic field sufficient for neuromodulation up to 80 mm depth from the magnet surface, which was 30 mm deeper than the current tSMS system. In the stimulation experiment, the triple tSMS significantly reduced the MEP amplitude, demonstrating a successful inhibition of the M1 excitability in healthy subjects. CONCLUSION: Our triple tSMS system has an ability to produce an effective magnetic field in deep areas and to modulate the brain functions. It can be used for non-invasive deep brain stimulation.

Different activation signatures in the primary sensorimotor and higher-level regions for haptic three-dimensional curved surface exploration.

Haptic object perception begins with continuous exploratory contact, and the human brain needs to accumulate sensory information continuously over time. However, it is still unclear how the primary sensorimotor cortex (PSC) interacts with these higher-level regions during haptic exploration over time. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigates time-dependent haptic object processing by examining brain activity during haptic 3D curve and roughness estimations. For this experiment, we designed sixteen haptic stimuli (4 kinds of curves × 4 varieties of roughness) for the haptic curve and roughness estimation tasks. Twenty participants were asked to move their right index and middle fingers along the surface twice and to estimate one of the two features-roughness or curvature-depending on the task instruction. We found that the brain activity in several higher-level regions (e.g., the bilateral posterior parietal cortex) linearly increased as the number of curves increased during the haptic exploration phase. Surprisingly, we found that the contralateral PSC was parametrically modulated by the number of curves only during the late exploration phase but not during the early exploration phase. In contrast, we found no similar parametric modulation activity patterns during the haptic roughness estimation task in either the contralateral PSC or in higher-level regions. Thus, our findings suggest that haptic 3D object perception is processed across the cortical hierarchy, whereas the contralateral PSC interacts with other higher-level regions across time in a manner that is dependent upon the features of the object.

Hemodynamic response varies across tactile stimuli with different temporal structures.

Tactile stimuli can be distinguished based on their temporal features (e.g., duration, local frequency, and number of pulses), which are fundamental for vibrotactile frequency perception. Characterizing how the hemodynamic response changes in shape across experimental conditions is important for designing and interpreting fMRI studies on tactile information processing. In this study, we focused on periodic tactile stimuli with different temporal structures and explored the hemodynamic response function (HRF) induced by these stimuli. We found that HRFs were stimulus-dependent in tactile-related brain areas. Continuous stimuli induced a greater area of activation and a stronger and narrower hemodynamic response than intermittent stimuli with the same duration. The magnitude of the HRF increased with increasing stimulus duration. By normalizing the characteristics into topographic matrix, nonlinearity was obvious. These results suggested that stimulation patterns and duration within a cycle may be key characters for distinguishing different stimuli. We conclude that different temporal structures of tactile stimuli induced different HRFs, which are essential for vibrotactile perception and should be considered in fMRI experimental designs and analyses.

Influence of layered skull modeling on the frequency sensitivity and target accuracy in simulations of transcranial current stimulation.

With the development of electrical stimulation technology, especially the emergence of temporally interfering (TI) stimulation, it is necessary to discuss the influence of current frequency on stimulation intensity. Accurate skull modeling is important for transcranial current stimulation (tCS) simulation prediction because of its large role in dispersing current. In this study, we simulated different frequencies of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) and TI stimulation in single-layer and layered skull model, compared the electric field via error parameters such as the relative difference measure and relative magnification factor. Pearson correlation analysis and t-test were used to measure the differences in envelope amplitude. The results showed that the intensity of electric field in the brain generated by per unit of stimulation current will increase with current frequency, and the layered skull model had a better response to frequency. An obvious pattern difference was found between the electric fields of the layered and single-layer skull individualized models. For TI stimulation, the Pearson correlation coefficient between the envelope distribution of the layered skull model and the single-layer skull was only 0.746 in the individualized model, which is clearly lower than the correlation coefficient of 0.999 determined from the spherical model. Higher carrier frequencies seemed to be easier to generate a large enough brain electric field envelope in TI stimulation. In conclusion, we recommend using layered skull models instead of single-layer skull models in tCS (particularly TI stimulation) simulation studies in order to improve the accuracy of the prediction of stimulus intensity and stimulus target.

Semantically Congruent Bimodal Presentation with Divided-Modality Attention Accelerates Unisensory Working Memory Retrieval.

Although previous studies have shown that semantic multisensory integration can be differentially modulated by attention focus, it remains unclear whether attentionally mediated multisensory perceptual facilitation could impact further cognitive performance. Using a delayed matching-to-sample paradigm, the present study investigated the effect of semantically congruent bimodal presentation on subsequent unisensory working memory (WM) performance by manipulating attention focus. The results showed that unisensory WM retrieval was faster in the semantically congruent condition than in the incongruent multisensory encoding condition. However, such a result was only found in the divided-modality attention condition. This result indicates that a robust multisensory representation was constructed during semantically congruent multisensory encoding with divided-modality attention; this representation then accelerated unisensory WM performance, especially auditory WM retrieval. Additionally, an overall faster unisensory WM retrieval was observed under the modality-specific selective attention condition compared with the divided-modality condition, indicating that the division of attention to address two modalities demanded more central executive resources to encode and integrate crossmodal information and to maintain a constructed multisensory representation, leaving few resources for WM retrieval. Additionally, the present finding may support the amodal view that WM has an amodal central storage component that is used to maintain modal-based attention-optimized multisensory representations.