Function
The DLPFC plays a role in sustaining attention and working memory. Lesions to the DLPFC impair short-term memory and cause difficulty inhibiting responses. Lesions may also eliminate much of the ability to make judgements about what's relevant and what's not as well as causing problems in organization.
The DLPFC has recently been found to be involved in exhibiting self-control. http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/501/3
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is one of the few areas deactivated during REM sleep. Neuroscientist J. Allan Hobson has hypothesized that activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex produces lucid dreams.
Read more about this topic: Brodmann Area 46
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“As a medium of exchange,... worrying regulates intimacy, and it is often an appropriate response to ordinary demands that begin to feel excessive. But from a modernized Freudian view, worrying—as a reflex response to demand—never puts the self or the objects of its interest into question, and that is precisely its function in psychic life. It domesticates self-doubt.”
—Adam Phillips, British child psychoanalyst. “Worrying and Its Discontents,” in On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored, p. 58, Harvard University Press (1993)
“Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.—The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“The information links are like nerves that pervade and help to animate the human organism. The sensors and monitors are analogous to the human senses that put us in touch with the world. Data bases correspond to memory; the information processors perform the function of human reasoning and comprehension. Once the postmodern infrastructure is reasonably integrated, it will greatly exceed human intelligence in reach, acuity, capacity, and precision.”
—Albert Borgman, U.S. educator, author. Crossing the Postmodern Divide, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1992)