scholarly journals Automaticity and Reestablishment of Executive Control—An fMRI Study

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 1331-1342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Kübler ◽  
Veronica Dixon ◽  
Hugh Garavan
Keyword(s):  
Executive Control ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Cortical Activation ◽  
Automatic Behavior ◽  
Automatic Response ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal

The ability to exert control over automatic behavior is of particular importance as it allows us to interrupt our behavior when the automatic response is no longer adequate or even dangerous. However, despite the literature that exists on the effects of practice on brain activation, little is known about the neuroanatomy involved in reestablishing executive control over previously automatized behavior. We present a visual search task that enabled participants to automatize according to defined criteria within about 3 hr of practice and then required them to reassert control without changing the stimulus set. We found widespread cortical activation early in practice. Activation in all frontal areas and in the inferior parietal lobule decreased significantly with practice. Only selected prefrontal (Brodmann's areas [BAs] 9/46/8) and parietal areas (BAs 39/40) were specifically reactivated when executive control was required, underlining the crucial role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in executive control to guide our behavior.

scholarly journals Concurrent neuroimaging and neurostimulation reveals a causal role for dlPFC in coding of task-relevant information

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jade B. Jackson ◽  
Eva Feredoes ◽  
Anina N. Rich ◽  
Michael Lindner ◽  
Alexandra Woolgar
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Visual Object ◽  
Information Coding ◽  
Frontoparietal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
The Impact

AbstractDorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is proposed to drive brain-wide focus by biasing processing in favour of task-relevant information. A longstanding debate concerns whether this is achieved through enhancing processing of relevant information and/or by inhibiting irrelevant information. To address this, we applied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) during fMRI, and tested for causal changes in information coding. Participants attended to one feature, whilst ignoring another feature, of a visual object. If dlPFC is necessary for facilitation, disruptive TMS should decrease coding of attended features. Conversely, if dlPFC is crucial for inhibition, TMS should increase coding of ignored features. Here, we show that TMS decreases coding of relevant information across frontoparietal cortex, and the impact is significantly stronger than any effect on irrelevant information, which is not statistically detectable. This provides causal evidence for a specific role of dlPFC in enhancing task-relevant representations and demonstrates the cognitive-neural insights possible with concurrent TMS-fMRI-MVPA.

Functional role of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the modulation of cognitive bias

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xue Xia ◽  
Yansong Li ◽  
Yanqiu Wang ◽  
Jing Xia ◽  
Yitong Lin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Cognitive Bias ◽  
Functional Role ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal

scholarly journals Thinking and Feeling

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Scult ◽  
Annchen R. Knodt ◽  
Johnna R. Swartz ◽  
Bartholomew D. Brigidi ◽  
Ahmad R. Hariri
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Life Stress ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Cognitive Reappraisal ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Clinical Diagnoses ◽  
Math Problems

Calculating math problems from memory may seem unrelated to everyday processing of emotions, but they have more in common than one might think. Prior research highlights the importance of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in executive control, intentional emotion regulation, and experience of dysfunctional mood and anxiety. Although it has been hypothesized that emotion regulation may be related to “cold” (i.e., not emotion-related) executive control, this assertion has not been tested. We address this gap by providing evidence that greater dlPFC activity during cold executive control is associated with increased use of cognitive reappraisal to regulate emotions in everyday life. We then demonstrate that in the presence of increased life stress, increased dlPFC activity is associated with lower mood and anxiety symptoms and clinical diagnoses. Collectively, our results encourage ongoing efforts to understand prefrontal executive control as a possible intervention target for improving emotion regulation in mood and anxiety disorders.

scholarly journals Reducing future fears by suppressing the brain mechanisms underlying episodic simulation

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (52) ◽  
pp. E8492-E8501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland G. Benoit ◽  
Daniel J. Davies ◽  
Michael C. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Episodic Simulation ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Future Events ◽  
The Right ◽  
Development Of Anxiety ◽  
The Brain

Imagining future events conveys adaptive benefits, yet recurrent simulations of feared situations may help to maintain anxiety. In two studies, we tested the hypothesis that people can attenuate future fears by suppressing anticipatory simulations of dreaded events. Participants repeatedly imagined upsetting episodes that they feared might happen to them and suppressed imaginings of other such events. Suppressing imagination engaged the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which modulated activation in the hippocampus and in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Consistent with the role of the vmPFC in providing access to details that are typical for an event, stronger inhibition of this region was associated with greater forgetting of such details. Suppression further hindered participants’ ability to later freely envision suppressed episodes. Critically, it also reduced feelings of apprehensiveness about the feared scenario, and individuals who were particularly successful at down-regulating fears were also less trait-anxious. Attenuating apprehensiveness by suppressing simulations of feared events may thus be an effective coping strategy, suggesting that a deficiency in this mechanism could contribute to the development of anxiety.

The Role of HEXACO Personality in Perceived Time Load

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-65
Author(s):  
Ridwan Koswara ◽  
Ari Widyanti ◽  
Jaehyun Park
Keyword(s):  
Search Task ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Personality Types ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
People’S Perception ◽  
Perception Of Time ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Or Task

Today’s environment is characterized by time-demanding activities, which influence people’s perception of time. How people perceive time might be influenced by individual characteristics such as personality. The aim of this study is to observe the role of personality in perceived time load (defined as the extent to which time pressure is felt due to the pace at which tasks or task elements occur). Ninety-two participants (mean age = 20.87 years, SD = 0.86 years, 68 female) representing six different HEXACO personalities were involved voluntarily in this study; they completed a visual search task in conditions with different levels of difficulty, representing different time pressures. Perceived time load was assessed at the end of each condition. While performance is comparable, the results show that there is a strong tendency toward significance of personality in the perceived time load in general, in which extravert people tend to rate perceived time load higher than other personality types in the difficult tasks. Implications of the results are discussed.

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