Characterizing neural mechanisms of cognitive control

表征认知控制的神经机制

• 批准号: 8197329
• 负责人: Tobias Egner
• 金额: $ 30.32万
• 依托单位: DUKE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-01-06 至 2012-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8197329
• 关键词: Address; Animals; Architecture; Attention; Behavior; Behavioral; Brain; Brain region; Collaborations; Collection; Complex; Conflict (Psychology); Cues; Detection; Ensure; Event; Failure; Forms Controls; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Goals; Heart; Human; Knowledge; Label; Learning; Left; Literature; Maintenance; Measurement; Mediating; Mental disorders; Modeling; Monitor; Motor Activity; Nature; Neurologic; Neurosciences; Play; Positioning Attribute; Primates; Process; Psychological reinforcement; Recruitment Activity; Research; Research Personnel; Resources; Role; Sensory; Signal Transduction; Source; Stimulus; Substrate Interaction; System; Taxes; Techniques; Testing; Time; Transcranial magnetic stimulation; Ursidae Family; Work; base; clinically relevant; cognitive control; design; expectation; flexibility; improved; nervous system disorder; neuroimaging; neuromechanism; programs; public health relevance; relating to nervous system; repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation; response

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): 'Cognitive control' describes the ability to configure, maintain, and adjust sets of processing strategies (task-sets), which underpins flexible, goal-directed behavior. The overarching goal of this proposal is to improve our understanding of the neural mechanisms mediating this behavioral flexibility. This represents a central challenge in the neurosciences that bears major clinical relevance, as many psychiatric and neurological conditions are characterized by impaired cognitive control. Our general strategy for achieving this goal is to fractionate the multifarious concept of cognitive control into experimentally tractable component processes, and to harness behavioral, neuroimaging, and neuro-disruptive techniques to probe their neural underpinnings and interrelations. As a point of departure we focus on conflict-driven control ('conflict adaptation'), a component mechanism of cognitive control that serves the function of task-set maintenance. Here, the monitoring of processing conflicts, arising from simultaneous activation of incompatible stimulus or response representations, is thought to provide a signal for reinforcing the top-down biasing processes that comprise the current task-set, thus ensuring that levels of biasing remain commensurate with task difficulty. We pursue two specific aims: first, to gain a more profound understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying conflict adaptation itself, and second, to position this conflict-driven control mechanism within the wider framework of other types of control processes that, in combination, facilitate flexible behavior. Two studies will address the first aim. Study 1.1 will examine the hypothesis that conflict-driven control is organized in a parallel architecture of multiple conflict adaptation loops, which resolve different types of conflict independently. For this purpose, we will define neural substrates of conflict adaptation to independently varied sources of conflict, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), followed by fMRI-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), to test whether distinct sources of top-down control play dissociable causal roles in resolving different conflicts. Study 1.2 will closely characterize the time-course of conflict adaptation processes. To address the second aim, three additional studies will assess how conflict adaptation interacts with other component mechanisms of cognitive control. Study 2.1 pursues this goal by contrasting the transient conflict adaptation mechanism with a more sustained form of control, by combining fMRI with an orthogonal manipulation of phasic and tonic levels of conflict. Study 2.2 contrasts the reactive nature of conflict adaptation with proactively recruited control, derived from explicit cues regarding forthcoming conflict. Finally, study 2.3 examines the relation between neural mechanisms underlying conflict-driven reinforcement of task-set with those that mediate detection of task-change and task-set reconfiguration, in a conflict task-switching paradigm. This research program has the potential to significantly enhance our understanding of how the human brain supports flexible, goal-directed behavior, and to highlight possible failure modes in this ability. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed research is designed to elucidate neural mechanisms of 'cognitive control', the ability to generate, maintain, and adjust sets of goal-directed processing strategies, which lies at the heart of the type of flexible behavior that distinguishes humans from other animals, including other primates. We pursue this goal by combining experimental tasks that tax various component processes of cognitive control to differing degrees with measurements of brain activity (and functional connectivity between brain regions), as well as with stimulation techniques that temporarily inhibit function in a specific brain region, so that we can pinpoint which aspect of cognitive control is mediated by which brain region (or which set of interacting brain regions). The knowledge gained from this work will enhance our understanding of how the healthy brain mediates flexible, goal-directed behavior, and will provide more precise ideas of how neural mechanisms of cognitive control might be disrupted in psychiatric and neurological conditions.

描述(申请人提供)：“认知控制”描述了配置、维护和调整一组加工策略(任务集)的能力，这是灵活的、以目标为导向的行为的基础。这项建议的首要目标是提高我们对调节这种行为灵活性的神经机制的理解。这是神经科学中的一个中心挑战，具有重大的临床意义，因为许多精神和神经疾病的特征是认知控制受损。我们实现这一目标的一般策略是将认知控制的各种概念细分为实验上可处理的组成部分过程，并利用行为、神经成像和神经干扰技术来探索它们的神经基础和相互关系。作为出发点，我们将重点放在冲突驱动的控制(冲突适应)上，这是一种认知控制的组成部分机制，服务于任务集维护的功能。在这里，对不相容的刺激或反应表征的同时激活引起的加工冲突的监控被认为提供了一个信号，用于加强组成当前任务集的自上而下的偏向过程，从而确保偏向的水平与任务难度保持相称。我们追求两个具体目标：第一，更深刻地理解冲突适应本身背后的神经机制，第二，将这种冲突驱动的控制机制定位在其他类型的控制过程的更广泛框架内，这些控制过程结合在一起，促进灵活行为。两项研究将解决第一个目标。研究1.1将检验这一假设，即冲突驱动的控制被组织在多个冲突适应环的并行架构中，这些冲突适应环独立地解决不同类型的冲突。为此，我们将使用功能磁共振成像(FMRI)，然后是fMRI引导的经颅磁刺激(TMS)，定义冲突适应独立不同冲突来源的神经基础，以测试不同的自上而下控制来源在解决不同冲突中是否起到分离的因果作用。研究1.2将密切描述冲突适应进程的时间进程。为了达到第二个目标，另外三项研究将评估冲突适应如何与认知控制的其他组成部分机制相互作用。研究2.1追求这一目标，将短暂冲突适应机制与更持久的控制形式进行对比，将功能磁共振成像与冲突的阶段和紧张水平的正交操作相结合。研究2.2比较了冲突适应的反应性和从关于即将到来的冲突的明确线索中获得的主动招募的控制。最后，研究2.3考察了冲突任务转换范式中冲突驱动强化任务集的神经机制与调节任务变化检测和任务集重构的神经机制之间的关系。这项研究计划有可能显著提高我们对人脑如何支持灵活的、目标导向的行为的理解，并强调这种能力可能的失败模式。 与公共健康相关：这项拟议的研究旨在阐明认知控制的神经机制，认知控制是产生、维持和调整一系列目标导向的处理策略的能力，这是人类区别于其他动物(包括其他灵长类动物)的灵活行为类型的核心。为了实现这一目标，我们将不同程度地对认知控制的各个组成部分过程征税的实验任务与大脑活动(以及大脑区域之间的功能连接)的测量相结合，以及与暂时抑制特定大脑区域功能的刺激技术相结合，这样我们就可以准确地确定认知控制的哪个方面是由哪个大脑区域(或哪组相互作用的大脑区域)调节的。从这项工作中获得的知识将加强我们对健康大脑如何调节灵活的、目标导向的行为的理解，并将为在精神和神经疾病中认知控制的神经机制如何被破坏提供更准确的想法。