title: Area-specific information processing in prefrontal cortex during a probabilistic inference task: a multivariate fMRI BOLD time series analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Discriminating spatiotemporal stages of information processing involved in complex cognitive processes remains a challenge for neuroscience. This is especially so in prefrontal cortex whose subregions, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC), anterior cingulate (ACC) and orbitofrontal (OFC) cortices are known to have differentiable roles in cognition. Yet it is much less clear how these subregions contribute to different cognitive processes required by a given task. To investigate this, we use functional MRI data recorded from a group of healthy adults during a "Jumping to Conclusions" probabilistic reasoning task.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used a novel approach combining multivariate test statistics with bootstrap-based procedures to discriminate between different task stages reflected in the fMRI blood oxygenation level dependent signal pattern and to unravel differences in task-related information encoded by these regions. Furthermore, we implemented a new feature extraction algorithm that selects voxels from any set of brain regions that are jointly maximally predictive about specific task stages.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Using both the multivariate statistics approach and the algorithm that searches for maximally informative voxels we show that during the Jumping to Conclusions task, the DLPFC and ACC contribute more to the decision making phase comprising the accumulation of evidence and probabilistic reasoning, while the OFC is more involved in choice evaluation and uncertainty feedback. Moreover, we show that in presumably non-task-related regions (temporal cortices) all information there was about task processing could be extracted from just one voxel (indicating the unspecific nature of that information), while for prefrontal areas a wider multivariate pattern of activity was maximally informative.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We present a new approach to reveal the different roles of brain regions during the processing of one task from multivariate activity patterns measured by fMRI. This method can be a valuable tool to assess how area-specific processing is altered in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, and in healthy subjects carrying different genetic polymorphisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Theoretical Neuroscience, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Charmaine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Demanuele
authors.affiliation: Department of Theoretical Neuroscience, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; Department of Clinical Psychology, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kirsch
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; Department of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Esslinger
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zink
authors.affiliation: Department of Theoretical Neuroscience, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Meyer-Lindenberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Theoretical Neuroscience, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Durstewitz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis