The representation of abstract task rules in the human prefrontal cortex

Bengtsson, Sara L., Haynes, John-Dylan, Sakai, Katsuyuki, Buckley, Mark J. and Passingham, Richard E. (2009) The representation of abstract task rules in the human prefrontal cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 19 (8). pp. 1929-1936. ISSN 1047-3211

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Abstract

We have previously reported sustained activation in the ventral prefrontal cortex while participants prepared to perform 1 of 2 tasks as instructed. But there are studies that have reported activation reflecting task rules elsewhere in prefrontal cortex, and this is true in particular when it was left to the participants to decide which rule to obey. The aim of the present experiment was to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to find whether there was activation in common, irrespective of the way that the task rules were established. On each trial, we presented a word after a variable delay, and participants had to decide either whether the word was abstract or concrete or whether it had 2 syllables. The participants either decided before the delay which task they would perform or were instructed by written cues. Comparing the self-generated with the instructed trials, there was early task set activation during the delay in the middle frontal gyrus. On the other hand, a conjunction analysis revealed sustained activation in the ventral prefrontal and polar cortex for both conditions. We argue that the ventral prefrontal cortex is specialized for handling conditional rules regardless of how the task rules were established.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	decision making,fmri,free selection,prefrontal cortex,task set
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Developmental Science
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	17 Aug 2017 05:06
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2023 00:57
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/64546
DOI:	10.1093/cercor/bhn222

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