Koechlin Etienne, Jubault Thomas
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 9, quai St Bernard, 75005 Paris, France.
Neuron. 2006 Jun 15;50(6):963-74. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2006.05.017.
The prefrontal cortex subserves executive control, i.e., the organization of action or thought in relation to internal goals. This brain region hosts a system of executive processes extending from premotor to the most anterior prefrontal regions that governs the temporal organization of behavior. Little is known, however, about the prefrontal executive system involved in the hierarchical organization of behavior. Here, we show using magnetic resonance imaging in humans that the posterior portion of the prefrontal cortex, including Broca's area and its homolog in the right hemisphere, contains a system of executive processes that control start and end states and the nesting of functional segments that combine in hierarchically organized action plans. Our results indicate that Broca's area and its right homolog process hierarchically structured behaviors regardless of their temporal organization, suggesting a fundamental segregation between prefrontal executive systems involved in the hierarchical and temporal organization of goal-directed behaviors.
前额叶皮质负责执行控制，即根据内部目标来组织行动或思维。这个脑区拥有一个从运动前区延伸至最前端前额叶区域的执行过程系统，该系统支配着行为的时间组织。然而，对于参与行为层次组织的前额叶执行系统，我们所知甚少。在这里，我们通过对人类进行磁共振成像研究表明，前额叶皮质的后部，包括布洛卡区及其右半球的同源区域，包含一个执行过程系统，该系统控制起始和结束状态以及在层次组织的行动计划中组合的功能段的嵌套。我们的结果表明，布洛卡区及其右半球同源区域处理层次结构的行为，而不论其时间组织如何，这表明参与目标导向行为的层次和时间组织的前额叶执行系统之间存在根本的分离。
