Why is the ability to hold something in mind, even briefly, the gateway to flexible cognition? Xiao-Jing Wang explains how attractor dynamics and slow synaptic reverberation in prefrontal cortex give rise to both working memory and decision-making. Subscribe for more from the Convergent Science Network podcast series. Xiao-Jing Wang begins with a deceptively simple argument: without the capacity to maintain information in the absence of direct sensory input, an organism is enslaved to its environment, reduced to reflexive responses. Working memory , sustained neural activity that bridges the gap between stimulus and action , is therefore the foundation of cognitive flexibility. Drawing on decades of lesion studies, single-neuron recordings, and computational modeling, Wang makes the case that prefrontal cortex is uniquely equipped for this role,  ...