title: Medial prefrontal cortex activity correlates with time-on-task: what does this tell us about theories of cognitive control?
abstract: A paper by Grinband et al. (this issue) argues that dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) activity reflects time-on-task rather than conflict or error likelihood. In this commentary, Brown suggests that the findings are consistent with a new model in which mPFC learns to predict the nature and timing of action outcomes. The new model predicts that time-on-task effects coexist with distinct error likelihood effects, a result which is consistent with other recent findings from fMRI and monkey neurophysiology.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Psychological & Brain Sciences, 1101 E Tenth St., Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. jwmbrown@indiana.edu
authors.forename: Joshua W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D001931:Brain Mapping; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*