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 以受控的方式获取相关信息。在功能解剖学层面，这种认知控制是 与选择性募集特定的前额叶区域，与后皮质区域相互作用 以压缩任务适当的表示并驱动任务性能。本提案开始于 探索这些过程如何在儿童时期发展，在晚期衰老中的变化，以及 发展阶段对行为任务绩效有显著意义。两个假设进行了探讨 使用这种“寿命”方法。首先，我们预测，认知控制在儿童中发展的同时， 调动额叶区域完成任务的能力。第二，我们预测， 在老年人中，当额叶区域被招募时，但以非选择性的方式。进一步的目标是， 这项研究的目的是探索非选择性招募在老年人中的认知后果。通过 开发和使用对与认知控制相关的组成过程敏感的认知测试， 皮层控制过程的出现及其崩溃的行为后果将是 探讨了此外，群体间分析所面临的方法学挑战，包括 周围可能的解剖结构（发育和萎缩）、血流动力学和性能差异 将被探索。具体目标是（1）改进方法并确定边界条件， 包括儿童、年轻人和老年人在内的整个生命周期的功能解剖学比较，（2） 为了探索儿童在受控言语处理任务中额叶皮层的激活模式， 年轻人和老年人使用言语任务电池，（3）测量，在个别科目，他们的 认知控制的能力，并将这种能力与他们的正面招聘的绝对水平相关联， 正面募集的选择性。如果完成，本提案将提供（1）职能方法- 从童年到老年的整个生命周期的解剖学描述，（2）功能- 解剖学发现描述了发育变化，特别关注前额叶皮层和其他 与认知控制相关的结构，以及（3）与这些功能解剖学变化相关的数据， 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.