Clinical Neurosciences Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Scarborough Toronto, ON, Canada.
School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Drexel University Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2014 Mar 28;8:185. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00185. eCollection 2014.
Problem-solving is an executive function subserved by a network of neural structures of which the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is central. Whereas several studies have evaluated the role of the DLPFC in problem-solving, few standardized tasks have been developed specifically for use with functional neuroimaging. The current study adapted a measure with established validity for the assessment of problem-solving abilities to design a test more suitable for functional neuroimaging protocols. The Scarborough adaptation of the Tower of London (S-TOL) was administered to 38 healthy adults while hemodynamic oxygenation of the PFC was measured using 16-channel continuous-wave functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Compared to a baseline condition, problems that required two or three steps to achieve a goal configuration were associated with higher activation in the left DLPFC and deactivation in the medial PFC. Individuals scoring higher in trait deliberation showed consistently higher activation in the left DLPFC regardless of task difficulty, whereas individuals lower in this trait displayed less activation when solving simple problems. Based on these results, the S-TOL may serve as a standardized task to evaluate problem-solving abilities in functional neuroimaging studies.
问题解决是一种由神经结构网络支持的执行功能，其中背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC）是核心。虽然已经有几项研究评估了 DLPFC 在问题解决中的作用，但很少有专门为功能神经影像学开发的标准化任务。本研究通过适应一种具有既定有效性的评估问题解决能力的方法，设计了一种更适合功能神经影像学方案的测试。在对 38 名健康成年人进行的伦敦塔斯卡罗尔改编版（S-TOL）测试中，使用 16 通道连续波功能性近红外光谱（fNIRS）测量 PFC 的血液动力学氧合。与基线条件相比，需要两步或三步才能达到目标配置的问题与左 DLPFC 的更高激活和内侧 PFC 的去激活相关。特质深思得分较高的个体无论任务难度如何，其左 DLPFC 的激活始终较高，而特质深思得分较低的个体在解决简单问题时激活较少。基于这些结果，S-TOL 可以作为功能神经影像学研究中评估问题解决能力的标准化任务。
