Age, sex, and performance influence the visuospatial working memory network in childhood.

This study describes the influence of age, sex, and working memory (WM) performance on the visuospatial WM network. Thirty-nine healthy children (7-12 years) completed a dot location functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task. Percent signal change measured the intensity and laterality indices measured the asymmetry of activation in frontal and parietal brain regions. Old children showed greater intensity of activation in parietal regions than young children but no differences in lateralization were observed. Intensity of activation was similar across sex and WM performance groups. Girls and high WM performers showed more right-sided lateralization of parietal regions than boys and low WM performers.