Cover Picture: The drawing in the center of this cover is a schematic representation of the parallel, distributed, reciprocal connections between prefrontal cortex and various sensory modalities in the macaque cerebrum as drawn by Patricia Goldman-Rakic. Goldman-Rakic used this image in her lectures to describe how parallel processing in the prefrontal cortical subfields underlies the organization of representational memory, as proposed in her seminal chapter in the Handbook of Physiology (Goldman-Rakic 1987). The drawing is placed on an array of prefrontal cortical pyramidal cell images which delineate catecholaminergic synapses on dendritic shafts (yellow) and spines (red), as reconstructed in Krimer and Goldman-Rakic (Cerebral Cortex, 1997,17: 7450–7461). Pyramidal and non-pyramidal cells in cortical columns of the prefrontal cortex form recurrent microcircuits, which generate persistent activity during the delay period of working memory tasks. These circuits subserve the highest aspects of cognitive function, such as human thought.
[Table of Contents]