ReviewNature reviews. Neuroscience2016
The neuroscience of working memory capacity and training.
Review in Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 3 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 230 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Development and Evaluation of a Novel Treatment Intervention for People With Acquired Brain Injury
Evaluation of a Cognitive Training Therapy Based on Synchronized Oscillatory Stimulation in Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment Through a Randomized Clinical Trial
Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Effects on Attention and Working Memory: A Pilot Study
Who cites it
230 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The asymmetry of working memory training transfer: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Pooled it
- The impact of non-invasive brain stimulation and digital intervention on social cognitive therapy in autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Is transcranial alternating current stimulation effective for improving working memory? A three-level meta-analysis.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2025Pooled it
- Limited and inconclusive effects of computer-based neurocognitive training on PTSD, comorbid depression and executive functioning: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Pooled it
- What Is Targeted When We Train Working Memory? Evidence From a Meta-Analysis of the Neural Correlates of Working Memory Training Using Activation Likelihood Estimation.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Pooled it
- Review of the Neural Processes of Working Memory Training: Controlling the Impulse to Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Pooled it
- The impact of affective information on working memory: A pair of meta-analytic reviews of behavioral and neuroimaging evidence.Psychological bulletin · 2019Pooled it
- Optimizing tACS for working memory: differential outcomes in healthy aging and non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2025Trial
- Short- and long-term cognitive and electrophysiological effects of a brief working memory training in older adults: a pilot study.BMC geriatrics · 2025Trial
- An adaptive AI-based virtual reality sports system for adolescents with excess body weight: a randomized controlled trial.Nature medicine · 2025Trial
- Menstrual cycle phase affects alcohol impairment of working memory.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Trial
- Temporal Interference Stimulation Boosts Working Memory Performance in the Frontoparietal Network.Human brain mapping · 2025Trial
- Change in Resting-State Functional Connectivity Following Working Memory Training in Individuals With Repetitive Negative Thinking.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2024Trial
- Long-term cognitive training enhances fluid cognition and brain connectivity in individuals with MCI.Translational psychiatry · 2024Trial
- Effects of 6-Month Combined Physical Exercise and Cognitive Training on Neuropsychological and Neurophysiological Function in Older Adults with Subjective Cognitive Decline: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2024Trial
- Adaptive working memory training does not produce transfer effects in cognition and neuroimaging.Translational psychiatry · 2022Trial
- Intermittent theta burst stimulation over the parietal cortex has a significant neural effect on working memory.Human brain mapping · 2022Trial
- Trial
- Effect of one-session focused attention meditation on the working memory capacity of meditation novices: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.Brain and behavior · 2021Trial
- Reliability, sensitivity, and predictive value of fMRI during multiple object tracking as a marker of cognitive training gain in combination with tDCS in stroke survivors.Human brain mapping · 2021Trial
170 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Working memory - the ability to maintain and manipulate information over a period of seconds - is a core component of higher cognitive functions. The storage capacity of working memory is limited but can be expanded by training, and evidence of the neural mechanisms underlying this effect is accumulating. Human imaging studies and neurophysiological recordings in non-human primates, together with computational modelling studies, reveal that training increases the activity of prefrontal neurons and the strength of connectivity in the prefrontal cortex and between the prefrontal and parietal cortex. Dopaminergic transmission could have a facilitatory role. These changes more generally inform us of the plasticity of higher cognitive functions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
27225070What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.