Wise Steven P
Section on Neurophysiology, Laboratory of Systems Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, 49 Convent Drive, MSC 4401, Bethesda, MD 20892-4401, USA.
Trends Neurosci. 2008 Dec;31(12):599-608. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2008.08.008. Epub 2008 Oct 4.
The largest part of the primate prefrontal cortex has no homolog in other mammals. Accordingly, it probably confers some advantage that other mammals either lack or attain through the function of other structures. Yet, this advantage remains enigmatic. This is not so for other parts of the cortex. For example, certain visual areas encode, represent and store knowledge about objects. By analogy, perhaps the primate prefrontal cortex encodes, represents and stores knowledge about behaviors, including the consequences of doing (or not doing) something in complex and challenging situations. The long list of functions often attributed to the prefrontal cortex could contribute to knowing what to do and what will happen when rare risks arise or outstanding opportunities knock.
灵长类动物前额叶皮层的最大部分在其他哺乳动物中没有同源物。因此，它可能赋予了一些其他哺乳动物所缺乏或通过其他结构的功能获得的优势。然而，这种优势仍然是个谜。皮层的其他部分并非如此。例如，某些视觉区域编码、表征和存储有关物体的知识。以此类推，也许灵长类动物的前额叶皮层编码、表征和存储有关行为的知识，包括在复杂且具有挑战性的情况下做（或不做）某事的后果。通常归因于前额叶皮层的一长串功能可能有助于知道在罕见风险出现或绝佳机会来临时该做什么以及会发生什么。
