All parts of the brain › Functions › Working memory

What part of the brain controls working memory?

Working memory, the few items you hold in mind while using them, runs on a network of frontal and parietal cortex: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on the middle frontal gyrus keeps items active, the superior parietal lobule switches attention between them, and Broca’s area on the left inferior frontal gyrus rehearses words silently. [1]

The 3D brain needs JavaScript. The list of parts still says what each one does for working memory.

Lit: whole parts; region borders not drawn.

Slice

All 6 parts are lit together. Drag to turn, pinch or scroll to zoom, tap a part on the brain or a name in the list to focus it; .

Broca’s area is a region on a lit gyrus, not a separate shape. The 3D model draws only whole gyri, so the gyrus that holds each area is lit; the area’s exact border is not drawn.

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is a region on the middle frontal gyrus, not a separate shape. The 3D model has no shape for it, so the whole middle frontal gyrus is lit; the region’s exact border is not drawn.

Working memory: 6 parts lit

Middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, superior parietal lobule, supramarginal gyrus, caudate nucleus and cingulate gyrus. Tap one to see where it is and what it does.

The parts and their roles

Holds the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (below); the middle frontal gyrus may be involved in keeping material in working memory (maintenance), and prefrontal neurons in monkeys keep firing through the delay while a remembered item waits to be used. [1][2] Where is the middle frontal gyrus?
On the left it holds Broca’s area (below), which carries the silent (subvocal) rehearsal part of verbal working memory; in a 2003 meta-analysis of 60 imaging studies, its lower part on the right (Brodmann area 47) was involved more often when items had to be manipulated. [1][3] Where is the inferior frontal gyrus?
Switches attention between items when working memory is updated, and is tied to manipulating and rearranging what is held, not just rehearsing and recalling it. [1][4] Where is the superior parietal lobule?
Part of the inferior parietal lobule of the posterior parietal cortex, where brain scans place the holding (maintenance) component of verbal working memory, in the left hemisphere. [1][5] Where is the supramarginal gyrus?
Shows more spatial working memory activity in fMRI when a movement response follows straight away, and may recruit the motor system to support working memory; a loop from the dorsal prefrontal cortex through it is active during working memory tasks. [6] Where is the caudate nucleus?
Its front part, the anterior cingulate cortex, becomes active with the prefrontal cortex in reading-span tasks; people who do better show larger and better-coordinated activity in the two. [1] Where is the cingulate gyrus?

Named areas on the lit gyri

Broca’s area, on the : The pars opercularis and pars triangularis of the left inferior frontal gyrus. In verbal working memory it carries subvocal rehearsal, repeating the words silently to keep them, the component brain scans separate from holding them in the parietal cortex. [1][3]
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, on the : Also called the DLPFC: a functional area, not an anatomical structure, lying in the middle frontal gyrus. Its roles include working memory, planning, cognitive flexibility and inhibition, but it is not solely responsible for them and works through the circuits it connects to. [2]

How they work together

Capacity is small: Miller’s 1956 “magical number seven” was later revised by Cowan to about four chunks in young adults (fewer in children and older adults), and span shifts with the material, around seven for digits, six for letters and five for words. [1]
Baddeley and Hitch’s 1974 model splits working memory into a central executive, a phonological loop for words and sounds and a visuospatial sketchpad for images and places; in 2000 Baddeley added an episodic buffer that binds them and links to long-term memory. [7]
Most working memory tasks recruit a network of prefrontal and parietal areas whose connectivity rises during the task; briefly blocking them with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) impairs performance, so they are needed, not just active. Spatial tasks lean on the right hemisphere, verbal and object tasks on the left. [1]
One model (prefrontal cortex basal ganglia working memory, PBWM) has the prefrontal cortex work hand in hand with the basal ganglia, the group the caudate nucleus belongs to. [1][6]
Honest limit: these are networks seen in brain imaging and in recordings from monkeys, not single centres. Researchers still debate whether the prefrontal cortex holds the items or only controls attention to them, with the holding done further back, in the parietal cortex. [1]

Working memory holds a few items for seconds while you use them; the memory page lights the hippocampus and the medial temporal lobe, which keep facts and events for the long term. [1][8] What part of the brain controls memory?

Sources

Facts describe anatomy and normal function only. A part lit here takes part in working memory; it does not do it alone, and it does other jobs too. The 3D model is the adult male BodyParts3D brain (credits and licence); on it the brainstem includes the midbrain, pons and medulla, so lighting the brainstem lights all three.