The Rostro-Caudal Axis of Frontal Cortex Is Sensitive to the Domain of Stimulus Information
The Rostro-Caudal Axis of Frontal Cortex Is Sensitive to the Domain of Stimulus Information
复制标题
DOI：
10.1093/cercor/bht419
复制
发表时间：
2015-07-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
D'Esposito, Mark
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bahlmann, Joerg;Blumenfeld, Robert S.;D'Esposito, Mark
有证据表明，额叶外侧皮质沿其嘴-尾轴执行认知控制加工，但其他证据支持不同刺激域(例如，空间与非空间)参与的加工的背侧-腹侧功能组织。这项功能磁共振成像研究调查了在人类中是否存在可分离的背外侧和腹外侧嘴-尾部梯度，同时参与者在语言或空间刺激的3个抽象水平上执行需要认知控制的任务。抽象是通过使用关系复杂性不同的3个不同任务集来操纵的。关系复杂性指的是操纵任务组件之间的关系(例如，将特定线索与任务相关联)并对该关系进行推断的过程。使用不同刺激区域的任务涉及不同的后部区域，但在外侧额叶皮质中，我们发现了根据抽象水平组织的单个嘴-尾部梯度的证据，该梯度与刺激区域的加工无关。然而，由领域特定信息参与的背侧/腹侧分离的加工模式仅在任务要求招募的最嘴部区域内的每个可分离的额区中明显。这些结果表明，越来越抽象的信息在额叶皮质沿着不同的嘴-尾部梯度呈现，这些梯度也沿着背腹轴分离，这取决于任务要求。
Evidence suggests that lateral frontal cortex implements cognitive control processing along its rostro-caudal axis, yet other evidence supports a dorsal-ventral functional organization for processes engaged by different stimulus domains (e.g., spatial vs. nonspatial). This functional magnetic resonance imaging study investigated whether separable dorsolateral and ventrolateral rostro-caudal gradients exist in humans, while participants performed tasks requiring cognitive control at 3 levels of abstraction with language or spatial stimuli. Abstraction was manipulated by using 3 different task sets that varied in relational complexity. Relational complexity refers to the process of manipulating the relationship between task components (e.g., to associate a particular cue with a task) and drawing inferences about that relationship. Tasks using different stimulus domains engaged distinct posterior regions, but within the lateral frontal cortex, we found evidence for a single rostro-caudal gradient that was organized according to the level of abstraction and was independent of processing of the stimulus domain. However, a pattern of dorsal/ventral segregation of processing engaged by domain-specific information was evident in each separable frontal region only within the most rostral region recruited by task demands. These results suggest that increasingly abstract information is represented in the frontal cortex along distinct rostro-caudal gradients that also segregate along a dorsal-ventral axis dependent on task demands.