Cognitive Control Flashcards
Executive Function
Another term for cognitive control.
The Prefrontal Cortex has 4 major components?
The Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
The Frontal Pole
The Orbitofrontal Cortex
The Medial Frontal Cortex.
Two Prefrontal Control Systems
Goal Oriented Behaviour - Includes the LPFC, OFC and FP.
Its involved with planning, simulating consequences and intiating, inhibiting and shifting behaviours.
Guiding and Monitoring Behaviour - Includes the MFC. It monitors ongoing activity to module the amount of cognitive control needed to keep behaviour on track for current goals
Perseveration
A patient persisting in a response after being told it is incorrect
Damage to the frontal lobe can lead to
Social complications, impulsive, apathetic, distractible
Utilisation Behaviour
A dependency on prototypical responses for guiding behaviour, such as seeing a hammer and nail and automatically start to use them.
Goal Oriented Behaviour
Actions based on the assessment of an expected reward or value and the knowledge there is a relationship between the action and the reward
Habit
Habit driven actions occur in the presence of specific stimuli that trigger the retrieval of well-learned associations.
What memory is the PFC necessary for?
Working memory, so it can be acted on with goal oriented behaviour e.g.
Cells in the LPFC exhibit…
task-specific selectivity. It is critical for working memory by sustaining a representation of the task goal and working with the inferior cortex to sustain information.
It keeps information active so it can be acted on
What is the n-task?
Investigates the manipulation of working memory. Activiation in the LPFC increases as the difficulty of the task increases.
In the task it shows a continuous stream of stimuli and people have to push a button when a repeated stimulus is shown.
What three axes is PFC function along?
Ventral Dorsal
Anterior Posterior
Lateral-Medial
Ventral Dorsal Axis in PFC
It is organised in terms of maintenance and manipulation
Anterior Posterior Axis in PFC
The more abstract representation engages the more anterior regions (frontal pole)
The less less abstract engage more posterior regions of the frontal lobes.
The most posterior part of the frontal lobe, the primary motor cortex, the place where abstract intentions become concrete movement
Lateral Medial Axis
Is related to the degree to which working memory is influenced by info in the environment (more lateral) or information about personal history and emotional states (more medial)
More lateral regions integrate external information where more medial regions allow info relatioed to motivation and potential reward to influence goal-oriented behaviour.
Normative Decision theories
How people should make decisions
Descriptive Decision Theories
How people do make decisions
Action Outcome Decisions
The decision involves some form of evaluation of the expected outcome. If we repeat the action and if is consistent it becomes habitual and turns into a stimulus response decision
Model based decisions
The agent has an internal representation of some aspect of the world , such as having an internal map of the world so they can take a different route if they need
Model Free
Kinda like stimulus response where you have just an input and then an output.
Primary Reinforcers
Have a direct benefit for our survival, sex water
Secondary Reinforcers
Money and status have no intrinsic value but are rewarding through their association with other forms of reinforcement
Temporal Discounting
The value of a reward is reduced when we have to wait to receive that reward
Temporal Discounting
The value of a reward is reduced when we have to wait to receive that rewardDa
Damage to what region, messed with Temporal discounting?
Damage to the OFC
DeMore lateral regions of the PFC are important for..
Some form of modulatory control of these representations or the actions associated with them
Decision Variable
A representation that specifies the current value of leaving a patch for an unknown area!
What area plays an important role for foraging like decisions
The ACC.
The BOLD responses in ACC has a positive correlation with the explore value
What neurotransmitter is important for temporal discounting?
Serotonin
Dopaminergic Cells are scattered ___
throughout the midbrain
Two primary loci of dopaminergic neurons are two
Brainstem Nuclei
The substantia nigra pars compact (SNc)
The ventral tegmental area (VTA)
Neurons from the substantia nigra project
to the dorsal striatum
Neurons from the ventral tegmental area project through which two pathways?
The mesolimbic pathway travels to important areas of emotional processing
Mesocoritcal pathway travels to the neocortex
Activation of dopaminergic neurons is tied to
The expectancy of reward not just reward, the activity of these neurons is much higher when the reward is unexpected
Punishments and Rewards are similar in the fact ____
They are both motivationally salient, they draw our attention and control processes to influence behaviour
Habenula
A structure within the dorsal thalamus that plays a role in reward and dopamine systems
RPE
Reward Prediction Error, the difference between the expected reward and what is actually obtained. It is used as a learning signal to update value information as expectancies and valance of rewards change
Selection
The ability to focus attention on perceptual features or information in memory
Dynamic Filterin
is conceptualised to happen in the PFC. Filters information to retrieve and select the information that is relevant to the current task requirements (for example when explaining about a trip to san fransisco, you remeber the bridge, but to remeber the colour of it you need to filter information to access it).
Damage to the PFC leads patients to having difficulty maintaing their focus on a goal
How do we multitask?
We become proficient in switching from one task to another which has more evidence than saying we learn to segregate the tasks and doing them at the same time.
Patients with damage to the LPFC are better than typical people at ___
Solving difficult problems with atypical answers, allowing them to think outside the box a bit more
TMS over inferior frontal cortex does what?
Directly disrupts goal-based selection
TMS over the dorsal frontal cortex
Produces an indirect benefit in goal based selection 9
Patients with damage to ____ are slow to abort a planned response
Lesions to the frontal lobe (Inferior frontal gyrus on the right side)
The ___ is crucial for the monitoring system
ACC in the MFC. The MFC is consistently engaged whenever a task becomes more difficult, the type of situation when monitoring demands are likely to be high
Attentional Hierarchy Hypothesis
A higher rung on the ladder of attention, like the top dawg
Error Detection Hypothesis
Comes from evidence implicating the MFC in the detection of errors
ERN
Error Related Negativity. Physiological responses such as the ERN can reactivate the goal in someones mind
Response Conlifct Theory
Difficulty and novel situations should engender high response conflict.
The MFC is engaged by monitoring demands, not by the occurence of an error
