Intraparietal sulcus maintains working memory representations of somatosensory categories in an adaptive, context-dependent manner

Working memory (WM) representations are generally known to be influenced by task demands, but it is not clear whether this extends to the somatosensory domain. One way to investigate the influence of task demands is with categorization paradigms, wherein either a single stimulus or an associated category is maintained in WM. In the somatosensory modality, category representations have been identified in the premotor cortex (PMC) and the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). In this study we used multivariate-pattern-analysis with human fMRI data to investigate whether the WM representations in the PMC, IPS or other regions are influenced by changing task demands. We ensured the task-dependent, categorical WM information was decorrelated from stimulus features by (1) teaching participants arbitrary, non-rule based stimulus groupings and (2) contrasting identical pairs of stimuli across experimental conditions, where either a single stimulus or the associated group was maintained in WM. Importantly, we also decoupled the decision and motor output from the WM representations. With these experimental manipulations, we were able to pinpoint stimulus-specific WM information to the left frontal and parietal cortices and context-dependent, group-specific WM information to the left IPS. By showing that grouped stimuli are represented more similarly in the Group condition than in the Stimulus condition, free from stimulus and motor output confounds, we provide novel evidence for the adaptive nature of somatosensory WM representations in the IPS with changing task-demands.