The DLPFC is the topmost part of the PFC and is considered to have overall management of cognitive processes such as planning, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. This is an area specialising in problem solving and how to direct and maintain attention to a task. When we are focused on what is happening now, our working memory is engaged with the DLPFC and connecting with the hippocampus for the retrieval and consolidation of long-term explicit memories. A dysfunction in this area may lead to problems with working memory, processing in the hippocampus, and long-term memory, as well as the integration of verbal expression with emotions. Such memory deficits have been associated with PTSD due to an underactive left DLPFC. Other DLPFC deficits can manifest as a lack of spontaneity and affect (flat rather than negative), and attention deficit—due to an inability to maintain sufficient attention to see a task through to completion. In obsessive–compulsive disorder (which we will consider separately in a later section the DLPFC plays an important role in strengthening attentional skills to momentarily break the compulsion circuit and give the orbitofrontal cortex a chance to inhibit the runaway activation of the amygdala. As with many brain regions, there are significant hemispherical differences within the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the left DLPFC being associated with approach behaviours and the right with more avoidant behaviours
