Executive Functions and Pre-Frontal Cortex: A Matter of Persistence?

Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience

Iead eRezek¹  Paul R Stokes¹  Paul M Grasby¹  Louis-David eLord¹  Subrata K Bose¹  Alle-Meije eWink¹  Federico E Turkheimer¹  Rebecca A Rhodes¹  Gareth eBall¹  Mitul A Mehta² 

[1] Imperial College London;King's College London;

关键词: Executive Function;    Prefrontal Cortex;    Persistence;    functional MRI;    networks;    BOLD;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fnsys.2011.00003

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Executive function is thought to originate in the dynamics of frontal cortical networks. We examined the dynamic properties of the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) time-series measured with fMRI within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) to test the hypothesis that temporally persistent neural activity underlies performance in three tasks of executive function. A numerical estimate of signal persistence, the Hurst exponent, postulated to represent the coherent firing of cortical networks, was determined and correlated with task performance. Increasing persistence in the lateral PFC was shown to correlate with improved performance during an n-back task. Conversely, we observed a correlation between persistence and increasing commission error – indicating a failure to inhibit a prepotent response - during a Go / No-Go task. We propose that persistence within the PFC reflects dynamic network formation and these findings underline the importance of frequency analysis of fMRI time-series in the study of executive functions.

【 授权许可】

Unknown