Middle frontal gyrus

In the volumetric brain

The Territory

Structure. The middle frontal gyrus stretches between the superior and inferior frontal sulci along the dorsolateral convexity, from the frontal pole nearly to the precentral sulcus. Its posterior bank houses area 8 (frontal eye field); its mid-rostral expanse corresponds to the granular dorsolateral prefrontal areas (9/46 in the Brodmann-derived nomenclature) that thicken toward the pole.

Function. Core dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: the active-maintenance and manipulation store of working memory, top-down attentional selection, and decision forming. Its posterior margin executes voluntary saccades through the frontal eye field. Damage here impairs executive control rather than sensory capacity.

The Levers — graded instruments & the levers to come

Experiences of record: Working-memory ladder (N-back trainer) · Conflict gym (Stroop trainer) · Braking lab (Stop-signal trainer) · Set-shift circuit workout · Planning studio (Tower of London)

Behaviour · Action · Thought — the tagged profile

Modulating Experiences

The Network — what fires with this region

Papers on disk — 208 full texts

The Evidence — Neurosynth studies (951)

The Evidence — NeuroQuery studies (917)

The Exploration Guide

*Frontal lobe · Mai atlas of record · 951 studies · 150 papers on disk*

The middle frontal gyrus is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex's wide home — stretching from the frontal pole nearly to the precentral sulcus between the two frontal sulci, its posterior bank executing the voluntary gaze the frontal eye field commands. It is the active-maintenance store of working memory.

The Territory

The middle frontal gyrus stretches between the superior and inferior frontal sulci along the dorsolateral convexity, from the frontal pole nearly to the precentral sulcus. Its posterior bank houses area 8 (frontal eye field); its mid-rostral expanse corresponds to the granular dorsolateral prefrontal areas (9/46 in the Brodmann-derived nomenclature) that thicken toward the pole.

*— {'source': 'Mai, Majtanik & Paxinos', 'work': 'Atlas of the Human Brain, 4th ed., Academic Press/Elsevier', 'kind': 'atlas', 'locator': 'axial plates, MNI y −9.7…+63.5 mm, 39 plates (labels MFG)'}*

What It Does

Core dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: the active-maintenance and manipulation store of working memory, top-down attentional selection, and decision forming. Its posterior margin executes voluntary saccades through the frontal eye field. Damage here impairs executive control rather than sensory capacity.

The functional record: active maintenance and manipulation of working memory, top-down attentional selection, decision forming. The decoded profile is the control one: task, memory, DLPFC, working memory, control. The graded matrix carries the executive family: Stroop as stimulator and assessor, flanker as stimulator — the conflict family recorded on the gyrus itself, alongside its neighbour BA 9's deeper grades. Its coactivation map is the DLPFC corridor: BA 9 (1,057 shared studies), inferior frontal sulcus (676), intraparietal sulcus (541).

*— {'source': 'Gazzaniga, Ivry & Mangun', 'work': 'Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind, 4th ed., W. W. Norton', 'kind': 'textbook', 'locator': 'ch. 12, Cognitive Control'}*

The Network

The frontoparietal control corridor again — BA 9, IFS, IPS, cingulate, premotor — the working-memory loop's cortical span.

Co-activation partners of record: BA 9 - dorsolateral prefrontal:1057, Inferior frontal sulcus:676, Intraparietal sulcus:541, Cingulate gyrus, anterior:514, BA 6 - premotor/SMA:441, Postcentral sulcus:400, Thalamus:393, Lateral fissure:383.

When It Fails

Dysexecutive syndrome with preserved intelligence — the DLPFC picture shared across the gyrus. Its 150-study dossier is thinner than BA 9's; the harvest continues filling it.

The Evidence

• Transition of brain activation from frontal to parietal areas in visuomotor (1998)
• Functional organization of spatial and nonspatial working memory processing (1998)
• Functional MRI studies of spatial and nonspatial working memory. (1998) — 10.1016/S0926-6410(98)00004-4
• A specific role for the thalamus in mediating the interaction of attention (1998)
• A common network of functional areas for attention and eye movements. (1998) — 10.1016/S0896-6273(00)80593-0
• Learning-related neuronal responses in prefrontal cortex studied with funct (1999) — 10.1093/cercor/9.2.168

951 studies total touch this region in the Neurosynth corpus of record; the full literature lives beside this dossier.

The Levers

• stroop — stimulator · standard-scientific
• stroop — assessor · standard-scientific
• flanker — stimulator · standard-scientific
• flanker — assessor · standard-scientific
• simon — stimulator · standard-scientific
• simon — assessor · standard-scientific

Candidate levers (Neurosynth-decoded terms — task(method-other), prefrontal(anatomy-reference), memory(cognition), dlpfc(anatomy-reference), working(method-other), parietal(anatomy-reference), working memory(method-other), control(cognition) …) are the foundation for the thousands of instruments to come; they are ungraded by law.

Explore Further

BA 9 - dorsolateral prefrontal:1057, Inferior frontal sulcus:676, Intraparietal sulcus:541, Cingulate gyrus, anterior:514 — each name is a dossier stop in this explorer.

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