Chapter 12: Cognitive control Flashcards
What is the input and output for cognitive control?
Input: sensory info
Output: one/two selected actions at a time
What is cognitive control?
Executive functions that enable us to use perceptions and knowledge and goals to bias selection of action
What is the difference between habits and goal-directed action?
Habits: action is automatically triggered by a stimulus
Goal-directed: action to achieve a goal that requires knowledge of the relationship between action and outcome
What prefrontal system is active in goal-directed behavior and what system is active in conflict monitoring?
Goal-directed: lateral PFC + frontal pole
Conflict monitoring: medial PFC + ACC
What is the difference in function between goal-directed behavior and conflict monitoring?
- Goal-directed:
- Maintenance of goals in working memory
- Filtering information according to goals
- Planning and organization - Conflict-monitoring:
- Monitoring goal achievement, including errors, negative feedback and surprise
- Modulation of degree of cognitive control
What are the consequences of PFC lesions?
Impairment in forming, updating and implementing rules for appropriate and effective behavior
- Perseveration: persisting even though it’s incorrect
- Apathy, distractibility, impulsivity
- not following rules, not planning, not understanding consequences
- socially inappropriate
What is the environmental dependency syndrome? What two types of behavior are associated with this?
Happens after PFC lesions.
- Actions guided on environment and not own personal goals
Two types of behavior:
- Imitation behavior
- Utilization behavior: keep drinking out of a glass when you’re not thirsty
What is the difference between the PFC in humans and other primates?
Humans have not a relatively larger PFC, but do have relatively more white matter volume
What does the delayed-response study investigate, how does it work and what happens in the delay period?
What are the main conclusions?
Investigates: neural bases of working memory (for maintaining goals)
How does it work:
- Retain attribute that is currently not present, but it is after a delay
Delay period:
- Lateral PFC neurons fire
Conclusion:
- Memorizing in lateral PFC
- Neurons are flexible: if task changes, neuron retain information
- Neurons represent task goals, not task-relevant information
What is the integrative model of goal-directed processing?
Goal is in PFC
It interacts with high level sensory areas that have representation of task-relevant information
What is dynamic filtering?
Selection of task-relevant information
What is the role of the lateral PFC and the posterior cortex in filtering?
Lateral PFC:
- Selects different types of information via attention according to dynamic goals
Posterior cortex:
- Inhibits task-irrelevant information and enhances task-relevant information
What is attentional selection? What is the consequence of damage to lateral PFC?
Task goals modulate posterior cortex.
- Enhancement for task-relevant categories
Damage lateral PFC results in:
- reduced inhibition of irrelevent info
How does inhibition of action work and with what test is this assessed? How do you abort a response?
Test: stop-signal test
- Stop signal activates right inferior frontal gyrus
- If action is already too far going, IFG can’t stop motor cortex, SMA, MFC and basal ganglia (STN)
Aborting a response:
Inferior frontal gyrus to STN and STN excites GPi, which inhibits thalamus strongly, which reduces activity for motor movement in cortex
What is the posterior-to-anterior gradient in the PFC?
Anterior: more complex tasks
Posterior: less complex tasks
Shows a goal hierarchy
What is meant with planning of goals?
Anticipation of consequences and requirements for achieving goals
Where do ERP’s for error detection and feedback come from and where does this region project to? What does the next region do with it?
ACC, projects to lateral PFC
- Reactivation of goal in working memory
What happens to the activity in cognitive control network and default mode network before an error according to the error detection hypothesis? What are some problems with this hypothesis?
Cognitive control network: decrease of activity
Default mode network: increase of activity
So there is a shift between these two before an error!
Problems: can reflect surprise and ACC also decreases in tasks where errors are rare but induce conflict
When is there high activity in ACC?
When there is an error made or there is conflict in tasks
What is a handy task to investigate conflict monitoring and what region becomes active?
Stroop task elicits activity in ACC for incongruent sequences.
Incongruent sequences induce more conflict and therefore take more time to solve
What is the posterior-anterior hierarchy in the ACC for conflict monitoring?
Posterior: potential motor responses
Medial: possible response options
Anterior: possible response strategies
What does the connectivity between ACC and lateral PFC in resting state say?
ACC calls lateral PFC for greater goal activation
What is whole-system dynamics?
ACC detects conflict
ACC signals to lateral PFC calling for greater goal activation
