Functional-anatomic exploration of cognitive control

面对不断变化的任务目标，健康的年轻人可以灵活地处理和扩展任务 以受控的方式提供相关信息。在功能解剖层面上，这种认知控制是 与与后皮质区域相互作用的特定前额叶区域的选择性招募有关 限制适合任务的表述，并推动任务绩效。本提案开始于 探索这些过程是如何在儿童时期发展的，在老年后期的变化，以及 其发展阶段的意义在于对行为任务绩效的影响。探讨了两个假设。 使用这种“寿命”方法。首先，我们预测，认知控制在儿童中的发展与 招募前额区来完成任务的能力。第二，我们预测认知控制会被打破 当额叶区域被招募时，在老年人中下降，但以非选择性的方式。这样做的另一个目标是 本研究的目的是探索非选择性招募在老年人群中的认知后果。通过 开发和使用对与认知控制相关的成分过程敏感的认知测试， 皮质控制过程的出现及其崩溃的行为后果将是 探索过了。此外，组间分析面临的方法学挑战包括 围绕可能的解剖(有发育和萎缩)、血流动力学和表现差异 将会被探索。具体目标是(1)改进方法和确定制作的边界条件 包括儿童、年轻人和老年人在内的一生的功能解剖学比较，(2) 为了探索儿童在受控语言处理任务中额叶皮质的激活模式， 年轻人和老年人使用言语任务组，(3)在单个受试者中测量他们的 认知控制能力，并将这种能力与其正面招募的绝对水平和 正面招募的选择性。如果完成，本提案将提供(1)功能-- 从童年到老年的整个生命过程中的解剖描述，(2)功能语料库-- 描述发育变化的解剖学发现，特别是前额叶皮质和其他 与认知控制相关的结构，以及(3)与这些功能解剖变化相关的数据 认知控制的行为关联。

Presented with changing task goals, healthy young adults can flexibly process and expand upon task relevant information in a controlled manner. At a functional-anatomic level, such cognitive control is associated with selective recruitment of specific prefrontal regions that interact with posterior cortical regions to constrict task-appropriate representations and drive task performance. The present proposal begins an exploration of how these processes develop in childhood, change in advanced aging, and what the significance of their developmental stage is to behavioral task performance. Two hypotheses are explored using this "Life span" approach. First, we predict that cognitive control develops in children concurrent with the ability to recruit frontal regions for task performance. Second, we predict that cognitive control breaks down in older adults when frontal regions are recruited, but in a non-selective manner. A further goal of this proposal is to explore the cognitive consequences of non-selective recruitment in advanced aging. By developing and using cognitive tests sensitive to component processes associated with cognitive control, the behavioral consequences of the emergence of cortical control processes and their breakdown will be explored. In addition, methodological challenges that confront between-group analyses including those surrounding possible anatomic (with development and atrophy), hemodynamic, and performance differences will be explored. Specific aims are (1) to refine methods and determine boundary conditions for making functional-anatomic comparisons across the life span including children, young adults, and older adults, (2) to explore activation patterns within frontal cortex during controlled verbal processing tasks across children, young adults, and older adults using a verbal task battery, (3) to measure, in individual subjects, their capacity for cognitive-control and associate such abilities with their absolute level of frontal recruitment and selectivity of frontal recruitment. If completed, the present proposal will provide (1) methods for functional- anatomic description across the life span from childhood to advanced aging, (2) a corpus of functional- anatomic findings describing developmental change with a particular focus on prefrontal cortex and other structures associated with cognitive control, and (3) data relating these functional-anatomic changes with behavioral correlates of cognitive control.