Cognitive Neuroscience Investigations Of Human Frontal Lobes

该科主要研究人类前额叶皮层的功能和认知神经可塑性。我们继续完善本节中开发的模型，该模型指定了前额叶皮层的潜在认知结构和表征知识的一些特征。我们已经确定，获取储存在前额叶皮层中的知识的难易程度取决于知识的类别和熟悉程度。此外，未能有选择地检索这些知识会导致计划制定和/或执行受损。激活储存在前额叶皮层的知识可以让这些知识管理那些必须暂时保持活跃的信息。社会知识和非社会知识可能分别储存在前额叶皮层中。获得这些知识有助于调节更原始的行为，如侵略。为了更好地理解认知神经可塑性的某些方面，我们研究了从脑损伤中恢复的患者的学习率，并将他们的表现与匹配的对照组进行了比较。有一些迹象表明，患者可以在缺陷区域显示新的学习，但尚不清楚新的学习是否不会损害认知功能。该部分还利用正电子发射断层扫描（PET），功能性磁共振成像（fMRI），直流极化（DCp）和经颅磁刺激（rTMS）来映射计划过程，表征知识，推理过程，社会认知，奖励系统，数字处理和计算到大脑。例如，我们已经用功能磁共振成像确定了前额叶皮层在多任务处理、任务转换和适应行为中的重要性。我们已经使用rTMS，以促进类比推理的速度在健康的正常对照科目可能提供一个框架，使用rTMS，以帮助脑损伤患者的康复。该部分利用正常对照研究，患者研究，功能性神经影像学和rTMS的数据，提供有关人类前额叶皮层和认知神经可塑性的功能收敛的证据。

The Section focuses its research on the functions of the human prefrontal cortex and cognitive neuroplasticity. We continue to refine a model developed in the Section that specifies some of the characteristics of the prefrontal cortex's underlying cognitive architecture and representational knowledge. We have determined that ease of access to knowledge stored in the prefrontal cortex is determined by the category and familiarity of that knowledge. In addition, failure to selectively retrieve such knowledge leads to impaired plan development and/or execution. Activating knowledge stored in prefrontal cortex allows that knowledge to manage information that has to be kept temporarily active. Social and non-social knowledge may be distinctively stored in the prefrontal cortex. Access to such knowledge helps modulate more primitive behaviors such as aggression. In an effort to better understand some aspects of cognitive neuroplasticity, we have examined the learning rate of patients recovering from brain damage and with deficits on the task of interest and compared their performance to matched controls. There is some indication that patients can show new learning in deficit areas but it is not clear that if new learning is without a cost to preserved cognitive functions. The section also utilizes positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Direct Current Polarization (DCp) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to map planning processes, representational knowledge, reasoning processes, social cognition, reward systems, number processing and calculation to brain. For example, we have determined with fMRI the importance of the anterior prefrontal cortex for multitasking, task-switching, and adaptive behavior. We have used rTMS to facilitate the speed of analogical reasoning in healthy normal control subjects possibly providing a framework to use rTMS to aid rehabilitation of brain-injured patients. The Section utilizes data from normal control studies, patient studies, functional neuroimaging, and rTMS to provide convergent evidence about the functions of the human prefrontal cortex and cognitive neuroplasticity.