Functional Imaging of the Human FEF

前额皮质（RFC）对于适应性高阶认知行为至关重要，这些行为会受到以下因素的影响： 多种精神健康障碍，包括精神分裂症（ADHD）、药物滥用障碍、 阿尔茨海默病和帕金森病，以及艾滋病相关的痴呆症。更好地理解基本神经网络 机制将导致诊断、预后和治疗程序的改进。尽管 RFC 对于意志行为的计划、维持、选择和执行至关重要，我们对此知之甚少 实现这些目标的机制。我们在这方面取得进展的障碍包括 1) 对动物 RFC 功能的关键作用如何转化为我们人类物种了解甚少 试图理解，2) 缺乏对 RFC 如何通过其影响持续行为的理解 与其他大脑区域的功能相互作用。在这里，我们提出了一种分而治之的策略，以更好地 了解 RFC 的功能。在 AIM 1 中，我们将本地化 RFC 的关键部分，即人类 猴子额叶视野 (FEF) 的同源物，并将其作为详细研究 RFC 的模型系统 功能。我们战略性地选择 FEF 作为我们的模型，因为 1) 与其他 RFC 领域不同，我们有 在人类中定位它的方法，2) 与其他 RFC 领域相比，来自猴子 FEF 的数据提供了 关于物种之间功能同源性的可测试预测，最重要的是 3) FEF RFC 所涉及的许多高级认知行为与 RFC 所涉及的相同。我们 将研究人类 FEF 用于规划、注意力、记忆和选择的机制。工作 在像动眼神经系统这样的更明确和受约束的系统中，可能会很快导致机械性 这些功能的说明在更复杂和更难理解的系统中可能不太站得住脚，例如 RFC 作为一个整体。尽管 RFC 被认为可以通过其功能影响持续的行为 与其他大脑区域的相互作用，缺乏证据支持这一理论。在 AIM 2 中，我们将使用 fMRI 用于测量 RFC 和其他可能形成的大脑区域之间的功能相互作用 支持关键行为的网络。这两个 AIMS 共同涵盖了功能专业化 本地级别和网络级别的分布式处理，将使我们能够测试关键假设 关于 RFC 如何支持意图、注意力和工作记忆。

The prefrontal cortex (RFC) is critical for adaptive higher-order cognitive behaviors that are compromised by a wide variety of mental health disorders including schizophrenia, (ADHD), substance abuse disorders, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease, and AIDS-related dementia. A better understanding of basic neural mechanisms will lead to improved diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic procedures. Although the RFCis critical for the planning, maintenance, selection, and execution of willed behavior, we know very little about the mechanisms by which it accomplishes these goals. Barriers to our progress in this regard include 1) a poor understanding of how the crucial animal work on RFC functions translates to the human species we are trying to understand, and 2) a lack of understanding of how the RFC influences ongoing behavior through its functional interactions with other brain areas. Here we propose a divide-and-conquer strategy for better understanding the functions of the RFC. In AIM 1, we will localize a key portion of the RFC, the human homolog of the monkey frontal eye field (FEF) and treat it as a model system for detailed study of RFC functions. We strategically chose the FEF as our model because 1) unlike other RFC areas, we have methods for localizing it in humans, 2) data from monkey FEF, as compared to other RFC areas, offer testable predictions about the functional homologies between the species, and most importantly 3) the FEF is implicated in many of the same high-level cognitive behaviors that the RFC in general is implicated. We will study the mechanisms that the human FEF uses for planning, attention, memory, and selection. Working within a better-defined and constrained system like the oculomotor system may quickly lead to mechanistic accounts of these functions that may be less tenable in a more complicated and less understood system like the RFC as a whole. Although the RFC is thought to influence ongoing behavior through its functional interactions with other brain areas, there is a dearth of evidence to support this theory. In AIM 2, we will use fMRI to measure functional interactions between the RFC and other brain areas that together may form networks supporting the critical behaviors. Together, the two AIMS embrace both functional specialization at the local level and distributed processing at the network level and will allow us to test critical hypotheses about how the RFC supports intention, attention, and working memory.