title: Neural structures underlying set-shifting: roles of medial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex.
abstract: Impaired attentional set-shifting and inflexible decision-making are problems frequently observed during normal aging and in several psychiatric disorders. To understand the neuropathophysiology of underlying inflexible behavior, animal models of attentional set-shifting have been developed to mimic tasks such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), which tap into a number of cognitive functions including stimulus-response encoding, working memory, attention, error detection, and conflict resolution. Here, we review many of these tasks in several different species and speculate on how prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex might contribute to normal performance during set-shifting.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, 1148 Biology-Psychology Building, College Park, MD, United States. Bissonette@gmail.com
authors.forename: Gregory B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Bissonette
authors.forename: Elizabeth M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Powell
authors.forename: Matthew R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Roesch
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000473:pathology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D012718:Set, Psychology