The debate over how working memory works
In a debate where the stakes are nothing short of understanding how the brain maintains its so-called “sketchpad of conscious thought,” researchers discuss exactly what makes working memory work in dueling papers in the Aug. 8 edition of the Journal of Neuroscience. Working memory is how you hold things in mind like the directions to a new restaurant and the list of specials the waiter rattles off after you sit down. Given that working memory capacity is a strong correlate of intelligence and that its dysfunction is a major symptom in common psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism, Mikael Lundqvist, a postdoc at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and lead author of one of the papers, says it’s important that the field achieve a true understanding of how it works. Lundqvist's corresponding author and Picower Professor Earl Miller adds that if scientist can figure out how working memory works, “we can figure out...