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. 2010 Aug;33(8):355-61.
doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2010.05.002. Epub 2010 Jun 22.

The What and How of prefrontal cortical organization

Randall C O'Reilly  1
Affiliations

The What and How of prefrontal cortical organization

Randall C O'Reilly. Trends Neurosci. 2010 Aug.

Abstract

How is the prefrontal cortex (PFC) organized such that it is capable of making people more flexible and in control of their behavior? Is there any systematic organization across the many diverse areas that comprise the PFC, or is it uniquely adaptive such that no fixed representational structure can develop? Going against the current tide, this paper argues that there is indeed a systematic organization across PFC areas, with an important functional distinction between ventral and dorsal regions characterized as processing What versus How information, respectively. This distinction has implications for the rostro-caudal and medial-lateral axes of organization as well. The resulting large-scale functional map of PFC could prove useful in integrating diverse data, and in generating novel predictions.

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Figures

Figure I
Figure I
Social network analogy for neural communication and learning. In panel (a), the author is in a central node and communicates with various colleagues. Over time, the author has come to learn which people in his network are reliable, what their expertise is, and how to evaluate the kinds of things they might say. Hence, if the social network were to undergo dynamic reconfiguration (b), the consequences could be devastating for the author’s ability to trust, filter, and otherwise build upon the information coming from the network.
Figure 1
Figure 1
The complete set of broad functional organizations discussed, along each of the 3 major axes: dorsal (How = perception for action = Stimulus (S) to Response (R) mappings) vs. ventral (What = Stimulus-driven semantic representations (S’)); within PFC rostral (abstract) vs. caudal (concrete); medial (Hot value representations) vs. lateral (Cold cognitive calculations). How* (DLPFC) indicates a control system for the How posterior pathway, as What* (VLPFC) does for the What pathway. Grey numbers indicate Brodmann areas on the lateral surface.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Summary of anatomical connectivity (in the macaque, where most of the anatomical work has been done) suggesting that dorsal vs. ventral distinctions in posterior cortex should influence prefrontal cortex, due to dominant dorsal-dorsal and ventral-ventral connectivity. Reproduced, with permission, from Ref. [9].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Results from Wager & Smith meta analysis [12], highlighting the selectivity of (a) VLPFC areas (Brodmann areas 44, 45; circled) for object and verbal content information, consistent with the What pathway account; and (b) DLPFC areas (Brodmann areas 6, 8, 9, 46) for updating and order processing, consistent with the How pathway account, in that these are broad categories of cognitive actions that also activate parietal cortex areas.
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