The role of the medial frontal cortex in cognitive control.
Adaptive goal-directed behavior involves monitoring of ongoing actions and performance outcomes, and subsequent adjustments of behavior and learning. We evaluate new findings in cognitive neuroscience concerning cortical interactions that subserve the recruitment and implementation of such cognitive control. A review of primate and human studies, along with a meta-analysis of the human functional neuroimaging literature, suggest that the detection of unfavorable outcomes, response errors, response conflict, and decision uncertainty elicits largely overlapping clusters of activation foci in an extensive part of the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC). A direct link is delineated between activity in this area and subsequent adjustments in performance. Emerging evidence points to functional interactions between the pMFC and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), so that monitoring-related pMFC activity serves as a signal that engages regulatory processes in the LPFC to implement performance adjustments.
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, Netherlands. K.R.Ridderinkhof@uva.nl
K Richard
KR
Ridderinkhof
Markus
M
Ullsperger
Eveline A
EA
Crone
Sander
S
Nieuwenhuis
D000818:Animals; D001519:Behavior; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D011323:Primates; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012201:Reward