The Architecture of Cognitive Control in the Human Prefrontal Cortex

✍ Scribed by Koechlin, E.

• Book ID: 118261247
• Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 391 KB
• Volume: 302
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0036-8075
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1088545

✦ Synopsis

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) subserves cognitive control: the ability to coordinate thoughts or actions in relation with internal goals. Its functional architecture, however, remains poorly understood. Using brain imaging in humans, we showed that the lateral PFC is organized as a cascade of executive processes from premotor to anterior PFC regions that control behavior according to stimuli, the present perceptual context, and the temporal episode in which stimuli occur, respectively. The results support an unified modular model of cognitive control that describes the overall functional organization of the human lateral PFC and has basic methodological and theoretical implications.