Neuroimaging a single thought: dorsolateral PFC activity associated with refreshing just-activated information

Neuroimaging studies of human working memory (WM) show conflicting results regarding whether dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) contributes to maintaining information in consciousness or is recruited primarily when information must be manipulated. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we looked at a minimal maintenance process--thinking back to a single, just-seen stimulus (refreshing). We found greater activity in left dorsolateral PFC (BA9) when participants refreshed a word compared to reading a word once or a second time. Furthermore, recognition memory was subsequently more accurate and faster for items that had been refreshed, demonstrating that a single thought that maintains activation can have consequences for long-term memory. Our fMRI results call into question any class of models of the functional organization of PFC and WM that associates simple and/or maintenance processes only with ventrolateral PFC or that associates dorsolateral PFC only with more complex processes such as manipulation.