Manisha Bhattacharya1, Subash Khushu1, Shilpi Modi1, Tarun Sekhri2, Rajendra Prasad Tripathi1
1NMR Research Centre, Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences, Delhi, India; 2Division of Health, Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences, Delhi, India
Patients with acute hyperthyroidism may show poor performance on working memory tasks due to attention deficit. Functional MRI was carried out in hyperthyroid subjects to assess the extent of cognitive deficit associated with spatial working memory. Significant BOLD activations observed in the prefrontal, middle frontal, superior parietal, middle temporal and occipital lobes in healthy subjects are attributed to attention, spatial working memory and spatial information processing. Patients with clinically diagnosed Graves disease showed reduced activations in these areas and additionally activated BA10 a region responsible for memory retrieval and executive functioning.