Cognitive Neuroscience Investigations Of Human Frontal Lobes

该科的研究重点是人类前额叶皮质的功能和认知神经可塑性。我们继续改进在该部分开发的模型，该模型指定了前额叶皮质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质中的知识的难易程度取决于该知识的类别和熟悉度。此外，如果不能有选择地检索这些知识，就会损害计划的制定和/或执行。激活存储在前额叶皮质中的知识使该知识能够管理必须暂时保持活跃的信息。社会性和非社会性知识可能以不同的方式储存在前额叶皮质。获取这些知识有助于调节更原始的行为，如攻击性。为了更好地了解认知神经可塑性的某些方面，我们检查了脑损伤恢复患者和有兴趣任务缺陷的患者的学习率，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表现出新的学习，但尚不清楚新的学习是否不会对保留的认知功能造成代价。该部分还利用正电子发射断层扫描(PET)、功能磁共振成像(FMRI)、直流极化(DCP)和经颅磁刺激(RTMS)将计划过程、表征知识、推理过程、社会认知、奖励系统、数字处理和计算映射到大脑。例如，我们已经用功能磁共振成像确定了前额叶皮质对多任务处理、任务切换和适应行为的重要性。我们已经使用rTMS来促进健康正常对照受试者类比推理的速度，可能为使用rTMS辅助脑损伤患者的康复提供一个框架。该部分利用来自正常对照研究、患者研究、功能神经成像和rTMS的数据，提供关于人类前额叶皮质功能和认知神经可塑性的聚合证据。

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.