Cellular basis of working memory

In the presence of normal sensory and motor capacity, intelligent behavior is widely acknowledged to develop from the interaction of short- and long-term memory. While the behavioral, cellular, and molecular underpinnings of the long-term memory process have long been associated with the hippocampal formation, and this structure has become a major model system for the study of memory, the neural substrates of specific short-term memory functions have more and more become identified with prefrontal cortical areas. The special nature of working memory was first identified in studies of human cognition, and modern neurobiological methods have identified a specific population of neurons, patterns of their intrinsic and extrinsic circuitry, and signaling molecules that are engaged in this process in animals. In this article, I will first define key features of working memory and then describe its biological basis in primates.