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Abstract:
The Tower of London task (TOL) is a common test to measure executive function impairment in patients with a number of psychiatric conditions (e.g., schizophrenia, depression).
Although substantial research has been carried out to investigate cortical interconnections and functional involvements in complex planning, little is known about
the effect of learning in regard to the nature of changes in behavior and cortical activation for Tower of London test performance. In contrast to commonly used single session designs, we repeatedly measured 8 healthy subjects (3 male) three times over a period of three weeks in a task load - balanced TOL design. In addition, long term effects were targeted in a 6 months follow up measurement. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed for the sessions duringweek 1, week 3 and after 6 months. In order to obtain unbiased activation maps of the targeted cognitive functions, a perceptually matched control
condition (calculation task) was introduced into the established TOL protocol (Dockery et al. 2009).Marked behavioral effects and substantial changes in functional activation maps over sessions suggest the importance of learning on functional reorganization in higher cognitive functioning such as complex planning processes. Our findings are discussed in light of established theoretical concepts and possible future applications.
