Miller E K, Cohen J D
Center for Learning and Memory, RIKEN-MIT Neuroscience Research Center and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Annu Rev Neurosci. 2001;24:167-202. doi: 10.1146/annurev.neuro.24.1.167.
The prefrontal cortex has long been suspected to play an important role in cognitive control, in the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals. Its neural basis, however, has remained a mystery. Here, we propose that cognitive control stems from the active maintenance of patterns of activity in the prefrontal cortex that represent goals and the means to achieve them. They provide bias signals to other brain structures whose net effect is to guide the flow of activity along neural pathways that establish the proper mappings between inputs, internal states, and outputs needed to perform a given task. We review neurophysiological, neurobiological, neuroimaging, and computational studies that support this theory and discuss its implications as well as further issues to be addressed
长期以来，人们一直怀疑前额叶皮质在认知控制中发挥着重要作用，即根据内部目标协调思想和行动的能力。然而，其神经基础仍是个谜。在此，我们提出认知控制源于前额叶皮质中代表目标及其实现手段的活动模式的主动维持。它们向其他脑结构提供偏差信号，其净效应是引导活动沿着神经通路流动，从而在执行给定任务所需的输入、内部状态和输出之间建立适当的映射。我们回顾了支持这一理论的神经生理学、神经生物学、神经影像学和计算研究，并讨论了其意义以及有待解决的进一步问题。
