Distributed representation of context by intrinsic subnetworks in prefrontal cortex.
Human prefrontal cortex supports goal-directed behavior by representing abstract information about task context. The organizational basis of these context representations, and of representations underlying other higher-order processes, is unknown. Here, we use multivariate decoding and analyses of spontaneous correlations to show that context representations are distributed across subnetworks within prefrontal cortex. Examining targeted prefrontal regions, we found that pairs of voxels with similar context preferences exhibited spontaneous correlations that were approximately twice as large as those between pairs with opposite context preferences. This subnetwork organization was stable across task-engaged and resting states, suggesting that abstract context representations are constrained by an intrinsic functional architecture. These results reveal a principle of fine-scaled functional organization in association cortex.
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; mwaskom@nyu.edu.|Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003.
Michael L
ML
Waskom
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.|Stanford Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Anthony D
AD
Wagner
D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D019295:Computational Biology; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
cognitive control; fMRI; functional organization; resting-state; rule