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PMID: 15883365 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S. Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Prefrontal cortex and flexible cognitive control: rules without symbols.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America ·Vol. 102 ·No. 20 ·2005-05-17 ·Pages 7338-43

Rougier NP, Noelle DC, Braver TS, Cohen JD, O'Reilly RC

Abstract

Human cognitive control is uniquely flexible and has been shown to depend on prefrontal cortex (PFC). But exactly how the biological mechanisms of the PFC support flexible cognitive control remains a profound mystery. Existing theoretical models have posited powerful task-specific PFC representations, but not how these develop. We show how this can occur when a set of PFC-specific neural mechanisms interact with breadth of experience to self organize abstract rule-like PFC representations that support flexible generalization in novel tasks. The same model is shown to apply to benchmark PFC tasks (Stroop and Wisconsin card sorting), accurately simulating the behavior of neurologically intact and frontally damaged people.

MeSH Terms
Cognition/physiology Computer Simulation Generalization, Psychological/physiology Humans Models, Theoretical Prefrontal Cortex/physiology Task Performance and Analysis
Authors & Affiliations
5 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Rougier Nicolas P
Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, 345 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
Noelle David C
Braver Todd S
Cohen Jonathan D
O'Reilly Randall C
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Article Info
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Abbr.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
ISSN
0027-8424
DOI
10.1073/pnas.0502455102
Published
2005-05-17
Epub
2005-00-09
Pages
7338-43
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
7505876
PMCID
PMC1129132
Subset
IM
Grants
NIMH NIH HHS · P50 MH064445 · United States
NIMH NIH HHS · R01 MH069597 · United States
NIMH NIH HHS · MH069597 · United States
NIMH NIH HHS · MH64445 · United States
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0502455102 PMC Full Text View journal details
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