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Cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying working memory

KU Yixuan^*

School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China

Abstract

Working memory (WM) refers to the process of temporally maintaining and manipulating input information. WM is the global workspace of cognitive functions, however, with severely restricted capacity and precision. Previous cognitive and computational models discussed the methods of calculating capacity and precision of WM and the reason why they are so limited. It still remains debated which model is the best across all datasets, and whether there exists upper limits of items. Besides, sensory cortices and the frontal-parietal loop are suggested to represent WM memorandum. Yet recently, the sensory recruitment hypothesis that posits an important role of sensory cortices in WM is strongly argued. Meanwhile, whether the prefrontal cortex shows sustained activity or bursting γ oscillations is intensely debated as well. In the future, disentangling the contribution to WM of feedforward γ vs feedback α/β oscillations, and/or dopamine vs serotonin systems, is critical for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying WM. It will further do help to recognize the basis for the psychiatric (e.g. schizophrenia) or neurological (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease) disorders, and potentially to develop effective training and intervening methods.

Key words: working memory; fronto-parietal loop; sensory recruitment; dopamine; transcranial magnetic stimulation; neural oscillation

Received: 2018-10-31　　Accepted: 2019-01-14

Corresponding author: 库逸轩　　E-mail: kuyixuan@gmail.com

DOI: 10.13294/j.aps.2019.0004

Citing This Article：

KU Yixuan. Cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying working memory. Acta Physiol Sin 2019; 71 (1): 173-185 (in Chinese with English abstract).