Functional Imaging of the Human FEF

前额叶皮质(RFC)对于适应性高级认知行为是至关重要的，这些行为受到 各种各样的精神健康障碍，包括精神分裂症(ADHD)、药物滥用障碍、 阿尔茨海默氏症和帕金森氏症，以及艾滋病相关痴呆症。更好地理解基础神经 机制将导致改善诊断、预后和治疗程序。尽管RFCI是 对于遗嘱行为的计划、维护、选择和执行至关重要，我们对此知之甚少 它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)a) 对动物在RFC功能上的关键作用如何转化为人类物种的理解不足 试图理解，以及2)缺乏对RFC如何通过其 与其他大脑区域的功能相互作用。在这里，我们提出一种分而治之的战略，以实现更好的 了解RFC的功能。在目标1中，我们将本地化RFC的一个关键部分，即人 猴额叶视野(FEF)的同源性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作为我们的模式，因为1)与其他RFC区域不同，我们有 在人类中定位它的方法，2)来自猴子FEF的数据，与其他RFC区域相比，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 与RFC一般所涉及的许多高级认知行为有关。我们 将研究人类FEF用于计划、注意力、记忆和选择的机制。劳作 在像眼球运动系统这样定义更明确和受限的系统中，可能很快就会导致机械性 对这些功能的描述在一个更复杂、更不被理解的系统中可能不那么站得住脚 RFC作为一个整体。尽管RFC被认为通过其功能影响正在进行的行为 在与大脑其他区域的相互作用方面，缺乏证据支持这一理论。在AIM 2中，我们将使用 功能磁共振成像用于测量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。这两个目标一起包含了以下两个功能专业化 本地级别和网络级别的分布式处理，并将允许我们测试关键假设 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.