Cognitive Control & Prefrontal Cortex

Flashcards on Cognitive Control and Prefrontal Cortex Functions

Cognitive Control / Executive Function (EF)

A set of psychological processes that enable flexible, goal-oriented behavior, helping us use perception, memory, and goals to make decisions, override habitual or impulsive actions, and adapt to changing environments.

Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)

Central to cognitive control, especially in working memory, planning, decision-making, and regulating behavior.

Lateral Prefrontal Cortex (LPFC)

Maintains and manipulates task-relevant information in working memory; shows increased activation with harder tasks (e.g., N-back).

Delay neurons in LPFC

Active between cue and response, holding information temporarily.

Lateral PFC (LPFC)

Working memory, planning, flexible behavior.

Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC)

Value-based decision making, delay discounting.

Frontal Pole

Abstract reasoning, high-level goals.

Medial Frontal Cortex (includes ACC and mPFC)

Error/conflict monitoring, motivation.

Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex (dACC)

Conflict monitoring.

Basal Ganglia

Reinforcement learning.

Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA)

Dopamine source for reward prediction.

Posterior PFC

Simple, concrete task processing.

Anterior PFC

Complex, abstract task processing.

Dorsal PFC

Linked to dorsal parietal areas; involved in top-down control (goals, rules).

Ventral PFC

Linked to ventral parietal areas; responds to stimulus-driven attention (bottom-up).

Delay discounting

Weighing rewards now vs. later.

Effort discounting

Weighing rewards against how hard they are to obtain.

OFC Lesions

Patients choose immediate rewards, fail to wait for better ones.

ACC Lesions

Animals don't exert effort for reward.

Marginal Value Theorem (MVT)

Describes how animals decide when to stay or leave a foraging patch based on reward rate. ACC activity correlates with these decisions.

Perseveration

Repeating incorrect responses.

Dopamine (DA)

Signals reward prediction errors; increases if reward > expected (positive error); decreases if reward < expected (negative error).