Rostral PFC: Gateway Between Imaginings and Happenings
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1
University College London, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, United Kingdom
Rostral prefrontal cortex (approximating BA 10) is a huge brain region that presents a paradox to cognitive neuroscience researchers. Activations in this region are commonly found in neuroimaging experiments, and can occur during a wide range of different tasks. However, lesions to rostral PFC in humans do not necessarily cause deficits in either the same tasks, or a correspondingly large range of them. Instead, they tend to cause deficits in a relatively circumscribed set of situations, especially those requiring multitasking, prospective memory, metacognition (including some forms of mentalizing), and dealing with “open-ended” situations. These findings suggest that data from human lesion studies can provide constraints for theorizing about the functions supported by this region. Starting from this viewpoint, we tested a theory about a key cognitive function supported by rostral PFC. This account, known as the “gateway hypothesis”, proposes that rostral PFC supports a cognitive system which affects novel degrees of bias between stimulus-independent vs. stimulus-oriented attending, or in lay terms, directing of attention between “imaginings” and “happenings”. Putatively, this would be a system required in many of the situations which present problems for people with rostral PFC damage. We invented direct tests of this “attentional gateway”, and, using neuroimaging, have found consistent rostral PFC activations during this class of task, regardless of stimulus (using conjunction designs). The activations follow a general rule, where stimulus-oriented attending activates the most anterior and medial aspects of rostral PFC, whilst stimulus-independent attending activates lateral aspects. This pattern also seems to hold for prospective memory tasks, where maintaining an intention is associated more with lateral rostral PFC activation, and performance of the ongoing task provokes relative increases in medial rostral areas. Further, with prospective memory tasks, small changes of instruction or format of the task can change the patterns of activation in ways predicted by the hypothesis. Further support comes from findings of a general principle for activation-behavioural relations in rostral PFC across all tasks (using meta-analysis). Here, slower (relative to the contrast condition) reaction times are associated with lateral rostral PFC activations, whilst medial rostral PFC activations tend to occur where reaction times are faster.
However, for some tasks (e.g. source memory, mentalizing) there may be a different relation between structure and function. A clue to the relations between processing and structure for these tasks may be found in differences in patterns of co-activation outside rostral PFC: Some of these are modulated by task type. For example, dorsolateral PFC, anterior cingulate and lateral parietal cortex tend to co-activate with lateral rostral PFC during most tasks, but with medial RoPFC in tasks involving mentalizing. These findings may be of help in understanding not only the symptoms shown by neurological patients with rostral PFC involvement, but also some of those shown in certain developmental disorders. For instance, very recent evidence from our group suggests a link between atypical functional specialisation within rostral PFC and high-functioning autism spectrum disorders. Indeed, findings from these individuals may provide a new potential source of constraints for theorising about the functions of rostral PFC.
References
1. Benoit et al. Neuroimage 2010, 50, 1340-1349
2. Gilbert et al. Brain 2009, 132, 869-878
3. Burgess et al. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2007, 11, 290-298
Conference:
The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes, Toronto, Canada, 22 Mar - 26 Mar, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Symposium 6: Neuropsychology
Citation:
Burgess
P
(2010). Rostral PFC: Gateway Between Imaginings and Happenings.
Conference Abstract:
The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.14.00021
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Received:
25 Jun 2010;
Published Online:
25 Jun 2010.
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Correspondence:
Paul Burgess, University College London, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, United Kingdom, pburgess@psychol.ucl.ac.uk