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Working Memory Functions of the Prefrontal Cortex

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The Prefrontal Cortex as an Executive, Emotional, and Social Brain

Abstract

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays an important role in many behaviors, including in situations in which actions must be guided by information that is not currently accessible in the environment. Although the construct of “working memory” is often invoked in association with the PFC, imprecise or erroneous specification of which computations relate to which aspect of anatomy or physiology has been the basis of many erroneous ideas about the functional organization of the PFC. Indeed, the manner in which working memory has been related to the PFC over the past 75 years offers several cautionary tales about the difficulty of relating brain function to behavior. This proposition is supported by consideration of data from lesions and physiological measurements from human and nonhuman primates.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The clarity and prescience with which Pribram et al. (1964) relate this line of reasoning and, more generally, with which they advocate an approach of “simulation … with the use of computers” is remarkable. Although the edited volume in which their chapter appeared is no longer in print, at the time of this writing, a digitized copy was downloadable from http://www.karlpribram.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/D-049.pdf

  2. 2.

    Although there are compelling reasons to classify the frontal eye fields as “prefrontal” from the standpoint of the evolution of neural systems (Passingham and Wise 2012), this author nonetheless finds it obfuscating when physiological studies that are limited to the frontal eye fields are labeled as studies of “prefrontal cortex.” The fact is that the properties described in these reports would almost surely not be observed in circuits in the vicinity of the principal sulcus.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Bradley R. Postle

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  1. Bradley R. Postle
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Correspondence to Bradley R. Postle .

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  1. Department of Physiological Psychology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Tokyo, Japan

    Masataka Watanabe

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Postle, B.R. (2017). Working Memory Functions of the Prefrontal Cortex. In: Watanabe, M. (eds) The Prefrontal Cortex as an Executive, Emotional, and Social Brain. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56508-6_3

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