Measuement of cerebral blood oxygenation during a verbal memory task by means of fNIRS

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to study changes in cerebral blood oxygenation during a verbal memory task. Eight right-handed male and six female volunteers matched on demographic variables and verbal memory performance participated in the study. Prior to verbal memory tasks, four verbal fluency tasks were loaded in order to obtain information of standard cerebral blood oxygenation for each subject. Effect of easy calculation on cerebral blood flow was examined during the verbal memory tasks. The easy calculation tasks were addition and subtraction with integer of one digit. Significant response was observed in the left prefrontal cortex, the insula bilaterally, the midline supplementary motor area, and the medial parietal cortex.